Friday, November 14, 2008

Picture contest week 1- November 16

Welcome to the Third Annual Mears Garden Picture contest. The motto is that we are absolutely going to get through the garden winter. And we will have a good time doing it.
Each Sunday evening for 12 weeks I will post 4 pictures from the garden for 2008. You get to vote for the one you like best. Those 12 winners and the 4 highest finishing second place pictures will advance to a round of 16. Over the next 4 weeks you will pick the four finalists. There will then be that one last vote for the fan favorite for garden year 2008. By that time winter will be mostly done, at least in Iowa. (In theory)
You can vote two ways and you need to vote sometime during the week. I would prefer that you vote here on the Mears garden blog located at
http://mearsgarden.blogspot.com/
At the blog there should be a place to vote at the top of the page.

You can also vote by just replying to the email that I will send you if you ask. I guess that would be the write in vote. In case you do not have my email address, it is Philip.Mears@gmail.com.

Here on the blog you should also be able to go back and look at the archive of pictures. You can find last year’s contest as well as pictures throughout the year.



There is a place for Comments at the bottom of the weekly post on the blog. Those are much appreciated. If you comment on the blog we can all appreciate your comments.

Each week on the blog I will do several things. I will give you the four pictures for that week’s event. I will tell you how the voting went the previous week. And I will tell you a little about news from the garden as the dark season progresses. Oh- there is also a bonus picture section each week on the blog.

I hope you enjoy the contest. Let’s begin.
___________________________________
Week 1- November 16-

Welcome- It’s cold and dark and wet in Iowa. It is truly time for colorful pictures to lighten our day. Here are this week's pictures. The dates included are when the picture was taken.

The first picture this week is a daylily called Siloam Double Classic. (7-9) Daylilies are the summer backbone of the garden, lasting from mid June to mid August.
Double daylilies are particularly interesting. They are so much more complex than the single ones. Pictures of other doubles are in the bonus picture section below.













The next picture is a white columbine close-up. (5-25) At times I have wondered about putting close-up pictures in the contest. It is almost unfair competition. But then I sometimes just think too much. The picture is pretty. It’s from the garden. Put it in.














This wonderful purple is a spring anemone called anemone blanda. (4-20) They grow in clumps. See the bonus section.













Finally there is the exquisite dwarf bearded iris, without a name. (5-1) While I have a pretty good idea of the names for my daylilies I do not have a good idea about my little iris. So it goes.














So there you have it. These are the first week’s contestants. Pick one if you can. The season has just started.

Bonus section.
This is all a lot of fun for me and I hope you enjoy it. I get to pour over all these pictures and pick ones to share. There are so many. Many of these seem just as nice as the ones selected for the contest. I admit some degree of arbitrariness in the selection process. Nevertheless here are bonus pictures.

First there is a collection of double daylilies. For those of you not familiar with daylilies I have included at the end of this group a not double daylily. You should be able to see the two sets of 3 petals, laid relatively flat on top of each other, rotated 45 degrees. Then in the middle there are the simple flower parts. With doubles there can be the same six petals, with the center being just all complicated. Sometimes there are even more petals than the six. In names of the lilies in this group are Francis Joiner, Siloam Frazer, Double Daffy, Savannah Knockout, Night Embers and Volcanic Explosion (the non double)
















































































This next picture is an anemone clump. They just keep getting bigger every year.
















Here you have more small bearded iris, the delight of April and early May.









































Finally here are columbine, including the same white flower in the contest above.





That’s it for this week.
Enjoy. There are real problems out there but there is hope, even beyond some colorful pictures.
Philip Mears

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Philip, I like the white columbine so much, I made it my desktop background, replacing the purple hosta from January 2008. It gently points to all the documents on the desktop that I have not dealt with in a timely fashion. Beauty softens the guilt. Thanks!