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Here and There…Now and Then |
Preston / Hoberman Sphere
We had a group of folks over this evening, including young Henry, whose photograph has been featured here a few times. We got out some toys for him and the older kids enjoyed showing him this Hoberman sphere. He wasn’t so sure he wanted anything to do with it. Preston, on the other hand, thought it was a lot of fun wearing it on his head.
Karen, Bob, Julia, Dorothy, Maureen, Stephen, and Kadie
Two days ago I showed you Julia’s ceiling. Today, you get Julia and her family (plus a few). We enjoyed the graduation ceremony and are very proud of Julia as she moves into the next phase of her educational career. We’ll miss seeing her quite so often but swill look forward to her visits all the more for her absence.
Well done, Julia. Thanks to you and your family for your love and friendship.
Justin, Judah, Maggie, Michelle, Dorothy, and Lee
I little short of two weeks ago, the Music Guild at school performed at an event at the school. Dorothy sang three songs in that performance. The first two were sung solo but the third as as part of a group. They sang The Misty Mountain Song from The Hobbit.
The group was asked to sing it again this evening at the middle school band concert, as representatives of the Music Guild. Six of the seven from their first performance were there and are in today’s photograph. From left they are Justin, Judah, Maggie, Michelle, Dorothy, and Lee.
They were practicing in the stairwell and the might have done better to have the audience come into the stairwell to hear them perform. The reverberations from the hard masonry walls produced a very impressive sound. I recorded them once in the stairs and as well as their performance in the auditorium. I think the former was better than the later.
I was listening to various version of the song on YouTube and can recommend this one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8OiYDUEu3i8.
Hannah Admires Julia’s Ceiling
We have some pretty artistically talented friends and Julia is one of them. She has a particularly beautiful singing voice, she plans the piano and guitar, and she is pretty handy with a pencil and paper (as well as other media). I’m not going to try to illustrate her musical ability here, but instead will pay silent homage to her drawing skills.
The ceiling over her bunk is decorated with sketches and this picture shows another talented friend, Hannah, admiring them. I have enjoyed watching her skills mature as she has grown into a beautiful young lady. I look forward to watching the next phase of her journey, as she heads off to college in the fall.
Dorothy Rose
Well, we’ve had a lot of rose pictures so to ease us back into the non-rose world, I thought I’d post a picture of Dorothy Rose. Actually, I’m mainly posting this because it is one of only six pictures I took today.
On Sunday I passed photo number 60,000 with this camera. As you probably know, I’ve been taking a picture every day since four days after I got my current camera. As of today I’ve taken 60,045 photos in 886 days and I’ve gone 882 consecutive days taking a picture. That’s an average of just about 68 photos per day. Obviously some days I take a lot more than that. Other days, like today, I take only a handful.
As you might expect, I have almost certainly taken more pictures of Dorothy than of anyone else. Dorothy and her friends are fairly common as subjects of mine.
Pink Rosa multiflora
Another rose photo taken on Monday. Don’t worry, I’m almost out of roses. I posted a few pictures of this rose on May 12 last year along with a fairly lengthy description of R. multiflora. That should be enough of a description to keep anyone from planting this in their garden, but then, this pink version is a little special. Wouldn’t it be nice to get this pink color, along with the well known multiflora resistance to blackspot and incredible vigor, into a repeat flowering rose? That’s my ultimate goal. Not sure what to cross it with, at this point, but I’m thinking. I’d also like to try my hand at creating a tetraploid version of this rose and see what that looks like. Of course, I’ve been meaning to work on that for quite a few years. Some day…
Rose ‘Blush Noisette’
Are you tired of roses yet? If you are tired of roses, you are tired of life, I always say. Well, I don’t always say it but perhaps I should. Over the few weeks I have posted pictures of some of my roses including two Noisette roses (and mentioning a third). This is the last of my four Noisette roses, called ‘Blush Noisette’ bred by Philippe Noisette (United States, 1814). It is a smallish rose, only growing to about six feet against my back fence and doesn’t have the huge climbing canes of ‘Crépuscule’ or ‘Jaune Desprez’. It isn’t really in full bloom yet, but is covered with buds so I have more to look forward to.
Rose ‘Dr. W. Van Fleet’
I didn’t really expect to have another rose for you today. My mom and I drove to North Carolina for the funeral of a cousin and to be with family. We stopped at cousin Lyn’s house to change and enjoyed looking at the roses he has growing. He believes that they were grown from a cutting that his grandmother took from her cousin Archie when she lived in the house he now owns.
I thought it was probably ‘New Dawn’ but Lyn said it doesn’t repeat bloom, which means it’s ‘Dr. W. Van Fleet’, the once blooming sport parent of ‘New Dawn’. It is a hybrid wichurana bred by Dr. Walter Van Fleet (United States, 1910). The repeat blooming ‘New Dawn’ was discovered by Somerset Rose Nursery in 1930 and has the distinction of having been the first plant to receive a U.S. Plant Patent (that is, it was awarded patent #1) on 18 Aug 1931. Lyn has three or four plants of ‘Dr. W. Van Fleet’, which are all absolutely covered with flowers. Very impressive.
Rose ‘Crépuscule’
Not that my garden comes anywhere near Nick Weber’s garden, but as I think I’ve mentioned, I have a rose or two growing here. This one is a fairly large climber, growing on a trellis on the south end of our house.
Rose ‘Crépuscule’ is a Noisette rose bred by Francis Dubreuil (France, 1904). The frame it’s growing on, which you can see the base of through the fence to the left of the buddleia, is twelve feet wide and ten feet high, not counting the two feet below it. As you can see, the rose is growing above the top of the frame and I have a feeling I could get it to cover a twenty foot frame.
The fragrance is strong and it will have flowers on it off and on all summer. The individual flowers are not perfect but in mass they are quite beautiful. There is another rose on this trellis, ‘Champneys’ Pink Cluster’, another Noisette rose, bred by Champneys (United States, circa 1811). That one isn’t nearly so impressive but it’s still a pretty little thing.
Rose ‘Blossomtime’
Rose ‘Cornelia’
As hinted at in yesterday’s post, I spent some time with roses today. Last year on the Saturday of Memorial Day weekend I posted a photo of a rose from Nick’s annual open garden and mentioned that the roses had bloomed quite early so we were treated to the later blooming varieties. This year we got the other end of the spectrum. Many roses had not really fully opened yet and there were thousands of buds yet to open on many plants.
That’s not to say I was even slightly disappointed. The garden was wonderful and the weather was perfect. Most years we seem to have a heat wave around Memorial Day weekend but this year it was quite cool. When we arrived at 10:30 I didn’t even have my sleeves rolled up and some people were wearing jackets. Once the sun got a little higher in the sky it warmed up and was quite pleasant.
I took quite a few pictures and present two of them here. The first is a large-flowered climbing rose called ‘Blossomtime’, bred by Conrad C. O’Neal (United States, 1951). The second is a hybrid musk called ‘Cornelia’ bred by Rev. Joseph Hardwick Pemberton (United Kingdom, 1925). Two very different roses but both beautiful. Thanks again, Nick and Rosanne.
Rose ‘Zephirine Drouhin’ with Clematis
If all goes according to plan, this should be a pretty rosy weekend. Since I’m actually writing this on Monday, I know how it turned out, but I won’t spoil it for you. For now, just enjoy this rose growing in my brother and sister-in-law’s back garden. The rose is a Bourbon rose called ‘Zephirine Drouhin’ and it is growing here with a white Clematis, which suits it quite well. The name Bourbon in this case refers to Île Bourbon (now called Réunion) off the coast of Madagascar. This rose is thornless and has a wonderful scent and color. By fall it is pretty much defoliated by black spot around here but is such a vigorous grower that it never seems to mind.
Rosa Multiflora
These are everywhere and they can be something of a nuisance. They are often planted in highway medians and can become so impenetrable that they can stop cars. On May 12 of last year I posted a picture of a pink multiflora rose (well, it probably isn’t pure multiflora) that I have growing in my yard. Anyone who knows roses will tell you that’s daft, but there it is. This picture is of a regular multiflora rose growing along the edge of the woods behind my office. A nuisance but it’s still pretty.
Ellen — Grande Jeté
I took quite a few pictures this evening but most of them were sort of run of the mill. I asked a couple girls to give me some dance moves that I could photograph and this is what I ended up with. It would have been nice to have a completely blank wall (i.e., without the chair rail) and my focus isn’t perfect, but the timing of the shot turned out well (it was the third of three tries). Thanks, Ellen. Grace, beauty, brains, and heart all in one package.
‘Rose de Rescht’
This is a wonderful little rose. I’ve had it growing in a container for quite a few years now and really should get it into the ground. ‘Rose de Rescht’ is a bit of an enigma in terms of its origin and has been classified as a Damask Perpetual and as a Portland rose, a group named after the 2nd Duchess of Portland, Margaret Cavendish Bentinck (11 February 1715 – 17 July 1785). Either way, it seems likely that it has both Rosa × damascena and Rosa gallica in its ancestry.
It’s a relatively small rose bush and when well cared for in a good location should give you at least a second flush of blooms later in the year and possibly an occasional flower at other times. Mine is a bit weak because it’s in a pot but the blooms are worth it. They are very strongly scented and quite lovely.
Iris ‘Eric the Red’
This is a little Siberian iris called ‘Eric the Red’ and it’s a lovely little thing. I brought this from our house in Gaithersburg when we moved seven years ago and it’s doing quite well in our front garden. It’s a little patch of purple that appears each spring.
If you are looking for a tough little survivor, this might be a good choice. It tolerates both drought and wet soil, which is pretty hand here. I’m thinking of putting in a small pool and bog garden and Siberian iris will definitely have a place in that.
Andy and Greta with Henry and Calvin
We were overjoyed to get to meet the youngest regular attender at church today. Amazingly, he’s never missed a Sunday. I took one or two pictures and this is by far my favorite. Andy and Greta with nearly-two-year-old Henry and six-day-old Calvin.
It must be nice to be able to look at your parents and not have to worry which one you’re going to look like because you’ll be good looking either way.
Headless Rabbit
I took a fairly wide variety of pictures today, as well as some video and I wasn’t sure what I should post but in the end I decided to go with something a little off beat. Dorothy and I were coming home from a church meeting and decided to take the scenic route. It doesn’t exactly cross the moors or go through mountain passes but it’s different to our normal route. This picture is something we spotted on the way. I don’t really have any explanation for it or comment on it, though. It is what it is.
Anna
Ellen
Jeffrey
I didn’t get a chance to take a lot of pictures today, partly because I had to get one of my cars to the shop and I was a little worried that I wouldn’t make it. In the end, I got there without trouble.
A little while later Cathy and Dorothy picked me up and we went to an event at church. Even there, where it isn’t unusual for me to take dozens of pictures, I only took a few. I did get three pictures that I think turned out quite well. It just happens we had some new folks there, including three siblings.
They are Ellen, Anna, and Jeffrey and I won’t say any more, except to say that I hope it works out that they can join our youth group.
Sunset Over the ICC
We were coming home from a wonderful dinner with some good friends and the sun was slowly sinking into the west. For most of the way home there are trees along the road and no clear views but as we crossed the Intercounty Connector (MD 200) we got a very nice view. We pulled into the commuter lot and walked up onto the hill next to it, which provided this view. The sun wasn’t visible from here, being behind the trees, but it’s a pretty nice sunset shot, anyway. When preparing this for use as my new banner I trimmed the foreground tree at the right, which I think helps a little, but I decided to give you the full panorama here. This image is made from seven photographs taken with the camera in portrait orientation, 100mm lens, stitched together with Hugin.
Rose Number Two – Jaune Desprez
This is the second of our roses to start to bloom. It is called Jaune Desprez (jaune is yellow in French) or Desprez à Fleur Jaune. This one is a Noisette bred by Desprez in France in 1835. This is another really good repeat bloomer and another rose with a wonderful, intense fragrance. If you have a largish section of wall to grow it on, you could do worse than this one. The flowers are typical of the Noisette type and the bush is the second most vigorous one that I have (after Crépuscule, which is absolutely huge and should start blooming in a day or two).