Holme Gardens, August

[puddleshark]

Took the newly-acquired secondhand zoom lens to the gardens at Holme, to try it out. It wasn't a successful day for flower photography - the light was too bright, and a stiff breeze was making the flowers bob about. But I followed the path that leads through the orchard and by the edge of the woods - lonely parts of the garden I had overlooked in the past - and came across some new-to-me plants, which is always exciting.



In the main gardens, cosmos and ageratus.


Along the Hot Borders, marigolds and crocosmia.










Kitchen garden. It was nice to see so many bumblebees about today. Butterflies, on the other hand, were notably scarce. Lots and lots of cabbages whites, but no other garden butterflies at all.


Hummingbird Hawk-moth. A small consolation for the lack of butterflies.


A spectacular display of annuals in the flower meadows.


Through the orchard...

Along the edge of a wood, a garden I hadn't explored before, with all sorts of wonderful shrubs and trees:


Calycanthus occidentalis. Helpfully labelled, because I'd never come across it before. Native to Californina.


Eucryphia lucida 'Ballerina'. Very pretty, and a long way from home - native to Tasmania!


Speckled Wood butterfly on a gorgeous pink variety of Snowberry.


I can't remember what this is called, but it's very beautiful.


Overexposed Cosmos high key shot!

Comments

[bleodswean]

Very, very nice!

[puddleshark]

Thank you!

It's a challenge, shooting brightly coloured flowers in bright sunlight... But the gardens are looking so fabulous right now, I don't care. 😊

[kotturinn]

I thought I'd have a play with reverse image search and I think the mystery plant is the foam flower - Tiarella cordifolia - also a North American native.

[puddleshark]

Thank you!

It's such a descriptive name, foam flower, it really should stick in my memory. But I expect I will have forgotten again the next time I see it. :-)

[kotturinn]

Pleasure. It's a lovely flower. I wish my garden had the right conditions for some.

[heleninwales]

Some more beautiful flower shots. You do have a good eye for making a nice composition out quite a chaotic view.

Are you happy with the new lens? The results look very good to me.

[puddleshark]

Thank you!

I'm still undecided with the new lens. I need to play around a bit more to check how quickly the auto-focus locks on. I was having problems with the auto-focus on my old lens, and it was so frustrating not being able to use it for action shots.

[heleninwales]

I'd forgotten that it was the auto-focus on the old lens that prompted you to buy another. A slow auto-focus would be frustrating.

[watervole]

Love that last pic!

Holme is wonderful. It won't be long before we're back for yet another repeat visit. The garden always has something new.

[puddleshark]

Thank you!

Yes, the gardens there are fabulous. I'm a regular visitor, and yet on this visit I found a whole area of the gardens that I had completely missed before!

Composition on

[jesse_the_k]

#1 cosmos is perfection. The flower is pulsing with energy from all the sunlight.

Re: Composition on

[puddleshark]

Thank you!

I can never resist photographing the cosmos when they are dancing in the wind. They are such graceful flowers.