Garden | The Showers of Blessings

Category Archives: Garden

Thursday Doors – Crystal Springs Rhododendron Garden

Posted on May 18, 2023 by Miriam Hurdle 78 comments

The Thursday Doors is a weekly challenge at Dan Antion’s site No Facility for people who love doors and architecture to come together to admire and share their favorite door photos, drawings, or other images or stories from around the world. If you’d like to join us, simply create your own Thursday Doors post and then share a link to your post in the comments in Dan’s post.

I hope you had a wonderful Mother’s Day with your mothers in the family last Sunday. We wanted to have Mother’s Day brunch, but many restaurants didn’t accept reservations for Sunday. Just showing up and waiting for several hours wasn’t what we wanted to do. So, we had Mother’s Day dinner on Saturday. On Sunday, we spent the morning visiting Crystal Springs Rhododendron Garden. It was a delightful trip admiring the beautiful flowers and sceneries there.

I didn’t find any doors at Crystal Springs. So, I borrowed two photos from their neighbors, Reed College and Eastmoreland Golf Course, with doors.

Crystal Springs Rhododendron Garden is a botanical garden located between Reed College and the Eastmoreland Golf course in southeastern Portland, Oregon in the US. The Garden covers 9.49 acres. The first rhododendron show was held in 1956. In 1964, the Garden was officially named Crystal Springs Rhododendron Garden, for the numerous springs within the Garden.

The original garden was designed by Ruth Hansen, a landscape architect, and a Portland Chapter member. The portion of the garden known as the Peninsula was designed by Wallace K. Huntington and was dedicated in 1977. The rocks used to build the waterfalls and other features were gathered from Mt. Hood and Mt. Adams.

Shortly after entering the Garden, we’re welcomed by an arched wooden bridge over a pond with waterfowl and water creatures. The garden is home to over 100 types of birds and other wildlife.

There are over 2,500 rhododendrons, azaleas, and companion plants in the garden. They are donated by volunteers and interested individuals or purchased with specially donated funds. Rhododendrons typically bloom from late February through July, and peak in late April to early May. The well-maintained Garden is a relaxing place to visit year-round.

Resources:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crystal_Springs_Rhododendron_Garden

https://www.portland.gov/parks/crystal-springs-rhododendron-garden

I fell in love with the gorgeous rhododendrons and azaleas. I bought seven varieties and different colors of these beautiful flowers. So far, I planted two azaleas and one rhododendron in my front yard. I’ll plant the other four in the backyard soon.

Check out more Thursday Doors posts by clicking the following link.

Thursday Doors – Crystal Springs Rhododendron Garden

Smorgasbord Posts from Your Archives 2022 – ‘Potluck’ – #Monarchs in My Garden by Miriam Hurdle

Posted on September 10, 2022 by Miriam Hurdle 23 comments

I’m over at Sally Cronin’s amazing Smorgasbord Magazine. She featured my post about the monarchs in my garden. Please join me to view this wonderful creature. There is no time like this to help the monarchs survive when, on July 21, 2022, The International Union for the Conservation of Nature added the migrating monarch butterfly for the first time to its “red list” of threatened species and categorized it as “endangered” — two steps from extinct.

Smorgasbord Blog Magazine

Since this series began in January 2018 there have been over 1000 Posts from Your Archives where bloggers have taken the opportunity to share posts to a new audience… mine.

The topics have ranged from travel, childhood, recipes, history, family and the most recent series was #PotLuck where I shared a random selection of different topics. This series is along the same lines… but is a ‘Lucky Dip’. I have posts scheduled for another few weeks but that will bring this current series to an end. Another series will begin in the new year.

In this series I will be sharing posts from the half of 2022

Today author and poet Miriam Hurdle shares the wonder of enabling the beautiful monarch butterfly to develop in her garden in amazing photographs and videos

Monarchs in my Garden by Miriam Hurdle

My first Monarch 2022

The year 2021 was my first year…

View original post 1,144 more words

Lens-Artists Photo Challenge – Summer Vibes

Posted on July 19, 2022 by Miriam Hurdle 66 comments

Andre is the guest host for the Lens-Artists Photo Challenge this week. His theme is Summer Vibes. He posted some biking, mountain climbing, hiking, swimming, diving, sailing, surfing, kitesurfing, and beach sailing photos.

He said, when it comes to the style of spending this most valuable time of the year, wishes would differ following their personal preferences.

I spend a lot of my summer in my garden

I love the cheerful sunflowers. The bees like them as well.

This baby grasshopper stayed on the African lily long enough for me to take a few photos. It’s the size of a grain of rice.

The monarchs have been doing very well this summer. I’ve raised about 50. There are still two chrysalises and one caterpillar. Then I’ll be done for this year because I’ll be away quite a bit the rest of the summer.

I also take summer trips with my husband and family

Hubby Lynton dived in Great Barrier Reef, Australia.

Our family went on a whale-watching trip at Huntington Beach.

Photo on the left, Lynton and I went hiking at Waimoku Falls in Haleakala National Park. Photo on the right, we watched the crashing waves on Makena Beach, Maui, Hawaii

I love to watch my granddaughters having fun in the summer

Autumn and Nora were building sandcastles at the beach in Three Creek Lake Campground, Deschutes National Forest, Oregon.

Autumn is getting good at paddle boarding at Three Creek Lake, Deschutes National Forest, Oregon.

Lens-Artists Photo Challenge – Summer Vibes

What are your favorite summer activities?

Lens-Artists Challenge #197 – The Rule of Thirds

Posted on May 3, 2022 by Miriam Hurdle 84 comments

This week, the theme from Tina Schell, for the Lens-Artists Photo Challenge is focused on one of the most well-known and widely used rules of photography, the Rule of Thirds. She said, “For those who would like to study the concept further, there are many online descriptions and examples. Adobe offers an excellent summary here. Basically, the rule is a compositional guideline that encourages placement of your primary subject on at least part of three equal rows and three equal columns as illustrated below.”

The Adobe article entitled: How to use, and break, the rule of thirds

Rule of Thirds Grid

The idea is to place your subject on one (or more) of the grid lines, or even better on the dots, theoretically making the image more pleasing to the eye.

I’ve been taking photos since I was a teenager when there were only Black & White photos. As indicated in the Adobe article, “The more you do it, the more it gets ingrained into your head.” I apply the Rule of Thirds most of the time in my photo compositions.

I learned drawing and painting at a young age, the Rule of Thirds also applies to the composition of drawing, painting, and some other forms of art. I’ll post my photos and two of my paintings in this post.

There are many kinds of butterflies in my garden, Swallowtail, Monarch, Mourning Cloak, and Cabbage butterflies. A Monarch came back from the south early this year and is busy laying eggs. I collected 10 eggs so far. Three are in the chrysalis form, two are growing strong, and five are 1/8″ babies. I’ll post some Monarch photos later. I saw a Nymphalis antiopa, known as Mourning Cloak, a few days ago but didn’t take good photos. I took the following one a while ago.

There are many turtles in the lake within walking distance from home. This colorful turtle was sunbathing when I walked around the lake one day. The entire colorful body is attractive. The reflection of the sunlight made part of his body draw more attention.

I took the following photo in Maui, Hawaii. The crashing waves evoke my imagination. I strive to take photos with droplets dancing in the air as the waves splash the rocks.

The following are my two paintings. Naturally, the tree is the focus of the first painting and the butterfly is in the second painting.

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Lens-Artists Challenge #197 – The Rule of Thirds

Happy Spring

Posted on March 22, 2022 by Miriam Hurdle 92 comments

This is the 3rd day of spring.

My granddaughter Nora turns 2 today. Two years ago this week, California started the lockdown. I canceled my flight to be with my daughter for her giving birth to Nora. We waited and waited. It was her first birthday when we finally got to see her. Her 2nd birthday party will be the first indoor party we’ve had since the pandemic. It’s very exciting. We look forward to spending time with both Autumn and Nora.

My spring garden would like to sing to you.

“The first bloom of spring always makes my heart sing.” – S. Brown

“To plant a garden is to believe in tomorrow.” – Audrey Hepburn

“Every spring is the only spring, a perpetual astonishment.” – Ellis Peters

“It was one of those March days when the sun shines hot, and the wind blows cold: when it is summer in the light, and winter in the shade.” – Charles Dickens