Flowers-Shrubs-and-Trees | The Beauty Around Us

Purple Blossoms

Bob and I went for a bicycle ride late this afternoon / early evening. We rode to Pioneer Arboretum, located at the north end of the Warren-North Warren Bike/Hike Trail.

Aren’t the blossoms on these trees beautiful?

There are many beautiful trees in the arboretum; however, many of the trees were in the shade and would not photograph well.

I LOVED how the blossoms were climbing up the branches of this tree!

Total bicycle miles ridden: 3.40 miles.

Neighborhood Flower Bed

Tuesday evening, while walking home from the polling place where I voted in the Pennsylvania primary election, I spotted a pretty flower bed that encircled a tree.

What a pretty flower bed!

This post is a contribution to the Today’s Flowers meme (#406). The Today’s Flowers meme was created by Luiz Santilli Jr. but now hosted by Denise in VA. You can find beautiful and unusual flowers from all over the world by clicking here.

Fiery Tree

This tree is located across the street from where my husband and I live.

This tree really puts on a show in the Autumn!

Heaven on Earth

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“On earth there is no heaven, but there are pieces of it.”
– Jules Renard

I visited a piece of heaven on earth earlier this week — our friends’ backyard garden.

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I will share with you lines from a poem, “A Garden Poem” by Robert Cording that I discovered this morning, as well as photographs of Shelly and Bob’s backyard garden.

A garden is both personal and private,
A place that is its own world,
A place that engages the imagination as well as the senses.

Among other things it is a passage to somewhere else –
To the personal and shared past its scents evoke,
To the distant places to which its forms allude.

Trees, flowers, water.
From the shade of a maple,
A warbler sings in Spring’s muscular blossomings.

Water spills from stone to stone and disappears into the pool below,
Everything is growing,
Changing with the light that dapples a patchwork of sun and shade,
And delights with quick transformations of colors.

A garden is full of the distance we call dreams.
Dreams of home, of family, of friendship.
A garden is a place that is its own world and ours.

To make a garden is to honor life and its blessings,
To make a garden is to come home.

In Between the Storms

Several storms rolled through Warren, PA yesterday evening. I spent much of the time outside, sitting on our picnic pavilion, while the storms rolled through. Our picnic pavilion has a metal roof. I enjoyed listening to the sound of the rain falling, although it hitting on the metal roof was almost deafening! I enjoyed the cool, refreshing breeze that came as a result of the storms too.

I took a few photographs in between the storms.

Our next-door neighbor’s Rhododendron bush.

I like how the picnic pavilion openings provide framing for the sky.

The image below is a fusion of three photographs. I placed my camera on one of the pavilion’s banisters. Using manual settings, I took one image correctly exposed. The second image was taken with an exposure value of +2; and the third image was taken with an exposure value of -2. I used f/22 for all three images and an ISO of 200 (the lowest ISO that my Olympus OM-D E-M5 is capable of. I used a program called Photomatix to fuse the three images together. I used Nik Color Efex Pro 4‘s detail extractor and tonal contrast filters to enhance the fused image.

Afternoon Bicycle Ride

I went on a 3-mile bicycle ride this afternoon. I took the Warren-North Warren Bike/Hike Trail from our house in North Warren to Morck Park in Warren and then back home. I rode to Morck Park alone; however, I had company for the ride back. Bob rode his bicycle into work this morning, which is a 3-mile ride from our house. I surprised Bob by meeting him at Morck Park. We rode home together.

Flowering Trees at Morck Park

Flowering Tree at Morck Park

The Warren-North Warren Bike/Hike Trail is near the Conewango Creek.
This is my favorite view of the Conewango Creek from the Bike/Hike Trail.

Crocuses

I’ve been watching the crocuses alongside our front steps for the past month, waiting for them to bloom. I finally received my reward for my patient wait.