Archive for August, 2009

Garden iPhoneography

On the Birchwood Garden Club summer members tour last Wednesday several of my gardening friends asked where my camera was. I wasn’t carrying my usual monster, tripod, and pack full of goodies. I reached in my pocket and pulled out my iPhone.

Sometimes it’s nice to wander around unencumbered by a big load, to be able to socialize with friends while enjoying a nice garden, and to play with the creative aspects of a camera that has certain limitations. In photo classes one of the standard assignments is to shoot a series with only one lens (zooms don’t count).

This was an evening tour and I was running late. I didn’t get to the first garden until about 6:30 and by the time we finished visiting the last garden it was 8:30 on an overcast evening. That was darn near dark, but the last garden made good use of light colored foliage to brighten up a couple of beds that probably looked their best in the evening instead of during the middle of the day.

We had fun, and I got to see a couple of gardens that were new to me. I’d like to go back to some of the gardens with my full toolkit, but it won’t be the same experience as it was on Wednesday night.

August 07 2009 | Gardens and Photography | 1 Comment »

Moss Campion

Moss Campion HabitatHere’s one of my favorite true alpine plants from the North Cascades. It’s called Moss Campion, Silene acaulis, and you’ll only find it at high elevations in the mountains. Here it’s growing among the rocks on the shoulder of Mount Larrabee with one of the summits of The Pleides in the background.

Moss Campion grows as a ground-hugging little bun, often appearing as a soft mound among the rocks. Its roots seek out cracks in the rocks, penetrating deep to find pockets of lingering moisture and nutrients. It blooms soon after the snow melts and once the flowers fade all you’ll see is a pale green lump. But when it’s in full bloom it can be spectacular.

Sometimes I’ve seen it high on a cliff, the bright pink flowers calling attention to it and presumably attracting the bees that pollinate the blossoms. In those instances it is so far out of reach as to be impossible to photograph. Even if I were to rappel down to it how would I set up my tripod while dangling in space?

I found this clump, as well as several others that had finished blooming, on a day hike of the High Pass trail Saturday. The weather had cooled off a bit and the bugs weren’t too bad. Starting at Twin Lakes the trail rises a little, then descends a couple hundred feet through moist flower-filled meadows before contouring around the hill and ascending a series of switchbacks to Low Pass. Then it continues climbing to High Pass and a well-worn boot track gains another 500 or so feet to the shoulder of Mount Larrabee. I only met a couple of other people on the trail, and they were on their way back to the lakes from bear hunting. They said it was the first day of bear season but they didn’t see any bears.
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August 02 2009 | Native Plants and Photography | 4 Comments »

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