I agree on detail photos...nice to see up close & personal! I especially like the design of that Parsley flower! The ant gives it perspective!

~Rosemarie

Your pictures are great! Bees, etc. always make pictures more interesting.

Sher

Wow, those photos really look 3D!

Wonderful photos!! I think your Bachelor Button relative is Centaurea dealbata (Persian Cornflower). Check out this link, and see if you agree.

Here is a link that might be useful: Google hit for Centaurea dealbata

HOW are you getting such clear close up shots? What kind of camera and lens are you using??

cailinriley - I think that you are correct about that flower being a Persian Cornflower. The flowers and foliage match the pictures on Google very closely. There was an old label saying "Scabiosa" near the base of the plant, but I think that was from 2 or 3 years ago. There is a real Scabiosa only 2 feet away, so I suspect that the plants have shifted positions a little over the previous couple of years and we forgot to move the signs!

Gingers Garden - I'm just using a 2 1/2 year old, fairly basic Kodak digital camera set to take pictures of objects close in. It's actually pretty "hit or miss" as to whether I get good photos or not. The camera's focusing is automatic so I just try to maneuver it so that the flower that I want to get a closeup picture of is filling the center of the screen. Sometimes the camera makes its own decisions and chooses to focus on the background rather than the flower in the foreground. I use the little display screen on the back of my camera to try and get it into an ideal position for the close up shots. On sunny days, I have learned to set the exposure level to -0.5 or - 1.0 so that the flowers won't look too bright and washed out. Other than that, it's largely luck of the draw. I probably post about 1% of the photos that I take.