Lens – Artists Challenge # 101 – a single flower.

This weeks Lens – Artist’s Challenge is made just for me I think, thank you Cee. I love to photograph flowers from my garden and anyone else’s garden really and in our native bush.

The very first flower photo I took with my new camera in 2018 was a fluke. I’d just taken it out of the box and snapped this Australian warratah in the Wellington Botanic Gardens. I didn’t have any idea how I did it but I fell instantly in love with the camera.

We have some unusual native flowers in New Zealand that suit our nectar loving birds. Rewarewa, the NZ honeysuckle is my favourite. A tall straight tree, it’s one of the first to flower in spring and the birds love it after a sparse winter.

A lot of our native flowers are small or look insignificant but get up close and they’ll dazzle you with their beauty. The NZ hibiscus, puarangi is a herbaceous perennial unlike the more common tropical shrubs and the flowers open a creamy white to display a stunning purple eye.

It’s winter here and there are not many flowers in the garden, only a few camellias and red hot pokers. In our native forest though, koromiko, a hebe almost always has flowers. What looks like a single flower is in fact a brush made up of lots of little flowers.

 

Pohutukawa is the NZ Christmas tree. A spreading gnarly tree that clings to coastal cliffs, it smothers itself with red pompoms in December.

What flower post would be complete without a rose.

Thank you so much Cee for letting me indulge my flower obsession.

 

 

 

Advertisement