Tulips are usually finished blooming around here before mid-May, but this has been a cooler than normal spring.

These pink tulips, planted with masses of blue forget-me-nots, were blooming today in Vancouver’s Queen Elizabeth Park. Other flower beds had different colors of tulips, and there were also pink and white forget-me-nots. In the small quarry garden there was a veritable river of blue surrounding one of the dwarf conifers. Upon looking closer, this sea was dotted with red-striped yellow tulips. The gunnera in the large quarry garden was bordered by purple tulips.

It was a rather dull, overcast day, ending with light rain that got progressively harder. The brilliant colors of the tulips and other flowers practically glowed in the soft light. Queen Elizabeth Park was teeming with people, most of whom were speaking languages other than English. It’s one of the more popular tourist destinations in Vancouver, but also popular with locals.

After I’d exhausted the possibilities in QE, I headed across town to VanDusen. More tulips were blooming there, as well as many of the rhododendrons along the walkway of the same name. Both gardens have Dove (or Handkerchief) Trees (Davidia involucrata) and they were at their peak bloom today. The tree gets its name from the very showy white bracts that frame the blossoms. It can be challenging to photograph because they’re hanging in the shade below the branches. Conveniently, one branch at QE was nearly at eye level and I was able to frame it against a dark conifer background.

I eventually started to get pretty wet, but finished the afternoon photographing some rather stunning clumbs of Shooting Stars (Dodecatheon meadia). This species is native to the eastern and midwestern United States and is often grown in gardens. In addition to the pinkish-purple here, they also come in near-white. This clump is particularly vigorous, obviously happy with the care the VanDusen gardeners are giving it.

I worked all day with two lenses — the all-purpose 24-105mm and the 70-200mm. Part of the time I stopped down significantly with a moderately wide lens to get maximum depth of field and other times I wanted to separate the background from the subject so used a large aperture with a long focal length. Choosing between the two techniques is really a matter of seeing the subject and thinking about the story to be told and how an editor might want to use the photo in print. There’s no magic formula, just keeping the mind open to different possibilities.

One other detail: these photos are straight from the camera with no post-processing. Breeze Browser generated the web versions from the JPEGs embedded in the Canon raw files.

It’s always nice to have my work featured on a magazine cover. Here’s the April issue of This Old House.

A similar image runs full page inside as the lead photo for the story about patio pavers. Both were made on an early May visit to this delightful Coeur d’Alene, Idaho garden. I’ve made two additional visits, one in July and another in January when several inches of snow covered everything.

The home and garden are on a small lot on the old fort grounds not far from the shore of Lake Coeur d’Alene. Being close to the lake, Patti enjoys a slightly warmer microclimate than gardeners just a few miles away. She’s stuffed her garden (without feeling crowded) with a great plant palette, complemented with appropriate hardscaping.

Large deciduous trees provide ample shade from the summer sun, and made the garden a joy to photograph on this spring morning. Soft filtered light is almost always flattering to a garden. For that matter, it’s flattering to most subjects. This photo was made with all natural light. No reflectors, diffusers, nor strobes were needed. It’s a matter of looking for, and seeing the light, then taking advantage of it. I always carry light modifiers, but they often stay in my bag.

I was up to Vancouver, BC today to photograph spring blooms at VanDusen and UBC Botanical Gardens. Spring is really late this year, but there were a number of plants in bloom on a gloriously pleasant day under a brilliant blue sky.

These delightful little species tulips were the star of my day, as I’d never seen them before. They were blooming in the alpine garden at UBC, in full sun and nestled against a nice warm rock. The flowers are similar in size to Tulipa tarda, which we have in our garden, but Tulipa urumiensis blossoms are solid yellow instead of having some white.

I found that Tulipa urumiensis is native to the shore of Lake Urumiya in Azarbaijan and along Lake Rezaiyeh in northwestern Iran. It’s apparently been in cultivation since the late 1920s, but I’ve never run across it. A page on Paghat’s Garden website has more information if you’re curious.

The photo was made with my 24-105mm all-purpose lens, with the camera on the tripod as usual. I softened the mid-day sun with a diffuser held as close to the flowers as possible. What you see here is straight from the camera, just downsized and converted to a JPEG for the web. Getting it right in the camera saves a whole lot of time later.

The magnolias in both gardens were putting on a great show, but quite difficult to photograph in many instances. The trees are getting to be good size and when they bloom on the upper branches it’s hard to isolate the tree from its surroundings. I didn’t try, choosing instead to just enjoy the beauty of the trees.

One of my favorite primroses, Primula denticulata or Drumstick Primrose, was in full bloom in both gardens. I bought one plant at the Seattle Flower & Garden Show back in February and planted it in our garden, but I haven’t seen any sign of flowers yet. Perhaps it takes a couple of years for them to get established. Either that or I planted it in too much shade and it’s not going to thrive.

Spring has been so slow this year that I haven’t done any garden photography since shooting in the snow on February 27. As the days get warmer and longer the plants should start to catch up and I’ll get busier.