As I write this, it’s late winter, mid-March. The garden is half green, half brown. The coneflowers and daylilies are up much sooner than is good. Already I’ve had to cover them from frost three times, and more times seem likely. Even the fern buds are up. Over the pastContinue Reading

The idea of having a front-yard garden hit me around the time I realized that periwinkle would not likely work any better than ivy. Periwinkle had been my safety choice. When that fell through, desperation set in, and the idea of having a garden slowly took hold, despite the lackContinue Reading

Looking through a viewfinder somehow changed my perspective. It’s difficult to explain how or why. In fact, I don’t think I can. What gives a situation or a scene or a thing significance? Why does a collection of objects or a location caught at a specific point in time haveContinue Reading

On a typical miserably hot July day, the third summer of the garden, I was pulling black-eyed Susans out of the coneflowers and pincushions. (Black-eyed Susans spread like a virus and will fill any available space, but that is a story for another day.) An older gentleman walked by andContinue Reading

Pick up a camera, shoot some film, and it will soon become apparent that reproducing on film what you imagine before firing the shutter is not a simple task. Two sets of concepts and principles have to be mastered to do photography well. First, one must learn the technical/mechanical aspects—camera,Continue Reading

So began my gardening journey. This is my front yard in March 2014 (iPhone 4s). It’s typical for a city lot–about thirty feet wide and eighteen feet deep. There had been decent ivy that lasted while four overgrown red-tipped photinia bushes kept the entire yard shaded most of the day.Continue Reading