Images of April

This post, "Images of April", was written for my blogspot blog called The
Transplantable Rose by Annie in Austin.

A SCANOGRAPH EXPERIMENT
Several garden bloggers have successfully scanned flowers, including Ki, Carol and Kathy. In her April 21st post, Pam/Digging displayed a rather spooky 'scanograph'. This term comes via Kathy of Cold Climate Gardening. Ki told me to give it a try, but also warned me that my brand of scanner would probably not work, since its light source would give little depth of field. Ki used M&M’s to test the colors, but bringing a bag into this house would be way too dangerous!

Two clematis vines grow in back, one on either side of the door. The larger flowered clematis had some flowers for the April Bloomday, but the other one – possibly a Clematis viticella from the appearance of the leaves and flowers - just opened the first blossoms this week.

I draped a black velour dress over one flower of each clematis, a ‘Nuevo Leon’ salvia, and one tired Mockorange blossom and scanned them, using the autolevel corrections from P-shop Elements to make it clearer. The scanograph colors look different from the flowers in natural light – one clematis is velvety purple with magenta-red bars adding a glow down the center of each petal, the other a ruby red washed with purple overtones – but the scanner seems to concentrate on the red. The live Salvia is a lighter, bluer purple.

When I looked at your flowers, on your blogs, the scanographs were interesting, but when the flowers are my flowers, from my own garden, I don’t think I like the effect – actually- it’s kind of creeping me out.

TWO CLEMATIS

The large-flowered clematis in morning light:
The possible Clematis viticella:

ANOTHER APRIL AMARYLLIS

As the peach and white Hippeastrum/Amaryllis from Bloom Day faded, this one opened. It could be Red Lion, since that was among the old Christmas bulbs which were planted out, to live or die. This flower survived in spite of 23º and an ice storm.

MORE FLOWERS IN THE LAWN


Alophia drummondii, above.These miniature members of the Iris family are native to south Texas rather than Central Texas, but in 2006, two of them appeared in our front grass. I mowed around them last year, letting them mature, which resulted in a scattering of these delicate flowers today. Because Skip Richter and John Dromgoole advise Central Texans to mow high, the flowers were able to grow tall enough to be visible, rather than be mowed before they had a chance to bloom.

Edit Jan 2008: Some photos from the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center suggest that rather than Alophia drummondii the right name for my little flowers may be Herbertia lahue.

According to McMillen’s Texas Gardening/ Wildflowers book, another name for this wildflower is Herbertia, and a rather pretty nickname is Purple Pleat-leaf.

LAST ISSUE

This week I received a postcard from Premiere Magazine, my favorite flick rag since the early nineteen-nineties. I’ve stuck with it through several moves, and bought many a gift subscription over 15 years. I’d heard the rumbles, so although I will miss the magazine, it wasn’t a shock to learn the April issue was the last. Ever.

With more than a year left on my current subscription, I was interested to see what the company would do. The postcard informed me that they’ll substitute the same number of issues that are owed to me, but the magazine they’re sending will be US Weekly.

Huh? A weekly gossip magazine is considered to be the equivalent of a monthly magazine with absolutely killer writers like Glenn Kenny and Paul Rudnick as Libby Gelman-Waxner? Not in my opinion. Phooie.

This post, "Images of April", was written for my blogspot blog called The Transplantable Rose by Annie in Austin.