Saturday, April 21, 2012

Spring Photography

The uncertain glory of an April day,
Which now shows all the beauty of the sun,
And by and by a cloud takes all away.
--William Shakespeare,
from The Two Gentlemen of Verona

William Shakespeare was a pretty smart guy.  He was absolutely right about April weather.

Last time I blogged, I wrote about lovely warm weather and spring tulips...then later that night we had a hail storm.  And then the next morning, we had snow flurries!  My poor tulips are wilted and crushed.  That's springtime in Minnesota for you.

Luckily, I know just the place to run to when the weather refuses to cooperate with my need for warmth and sunshine.  There's a lovely hothouse garden in Saint Paul, known as the Como Park Conservatory, which my husband and I visited recently on a date.  I got some great photos that day, and I thought I'd share some of them with you on my blog.  Here they are...

This room in the Conservatory is called the Sunken Garden.  The floral displays change seasonally.  Here is the spring display in all its glory!


Lovely, undamaged tulips--insert sigh of envy here.


Getting in touch with my inner Georgia O'Keeffe...


I've seen pink hydrangeas before, and I've seen blue hydrangeas, but this is the first time I've seen a mix of pink and blue on one hydrangea!


This flower was lovely in living color, but I converted it to black and white to emphasize its many gorgeous layers of petals.


Moving on from the Sunken Garden, the rest of the Conservatory has a great collection of tropical plants.  Ah, paradise!


I have no idea what this plant is called, but its color and shape are so eye-catching!


These yummy, sun-kissed oranges look like they should be in Florida or Italy, instead of Minnesota!


That's it for today!  I hope you've enjoyed your little tour of the Como Conservatory.

14 comments:

Dani Cristina said...

Owaaa!
Is beautiful pictures!!
I loved.
xo

Linda said...

Wow these are wonderful pictures! What a beautiful place! Love all the pretty flower.

Juanna Hope Sia said...

Hi Denise! thanks for the lovely comment on my blog (: love those garden photos you have here! good to know another scrappy friend!

Love, Juanna

BabyBokChoy said...

What an inspiring post!!! Your photography is so brilliant!!!

~Tammy~ said...

Oh my stars this is gorgeous! What a lovely composition of photographs! Wow!

tatiana_osipova said...

Дениз, какие прекрасные фотографии! Необыкновенно красиво!

Denise van Deventer said...

Amazing photo's...it must have been a special day!

Unknown said...

Beautiful pictures love all the colors you see.
byebye,Lean

Unknown said...

Just lovely Denise! You take such great photos!

Patricia said...

just gorgeous...

Ella Swan said...

Fantastic photographs! The one you don't know the name of is called "Bird of Paradise" or Strelitzia!! That and the tropical plants you showed are all very common in South Africa (Durban) where I live. I follow a blog called "Happenings on my side of the river" by a woman called Michelle Unruh who also had photos of the sunken garden. She obviously lives close to you!!

Denise Price said...

Thanks for the info on the plants, Helen!

Yes, there are quite a few Twin Citians active in the world of scrappy blogs. I clicked over to the blog you mentioned, and I see she was into the hydrangeas, too. :)

Michelle said...

Wow!! Too funny! What a small world! And to "meet" through a mutual friend that lives in Africa. LOL I see Jing Jing posted here too. :) Yes, Como's flowers are beautiful. (I have the blue hydrangeas in my yard.) I love them. It is my favorite thing now to go every spring and see what they have done. Under the photo tab a few posts back, I posted a few of the previous years too. I thought the orange and purple a few years ago was fun too. Different. I liked it. I was once and am from the Twin Cities but jumped the border just over into WI.

Svetlana Austin said...

thank you, Denise, for sharing all this beauty! amazing! ♥