may allow you to see beauty you would otherwise pass by...

or tiny friends at work...

before you retire inside to enjoy...

some gifts from the garden.

Beautiful roses and artistic photography!

Really lovely photos, with the praying mantis as the star of the show for me.

Thanks Totoro and Ingrid! My friend gave me the mantids and it’s been making the morning watering more interesting...

Beautiful photos! I want to grow a cold hardy fig tree if there is one. Have to buy some fresh figs.

What a great photo journey—thank you for taking us along! :-)

Hi Stephanie, it’s interesting you say that... given these are Firefighter which normally have a warm red tone. My experience has been if I cut the flowers when they are earlier in opening and bring them into the house, they turn out bluing, if I let them open more fully on the bush then they stay more warm-toned. I’m not sure if it’s the temp differential, but I think it’s interesting....

Summersrhythm, I am a fig newbie, and only am growing figs that have been validated locally as really good cultivars for my climate. California is a great place to grow figs but some grow better and taste good more consistently than others.

There are sone well known colder-growing figs I’ve read about like Chicago Hardy and Olympian, which might just be an English Brown Turkey. Check out the ourfigs forum. You will learn a lot there....

Thanks Perma, it was rather fun to create a story in this post. It was like my experience as I walked around tending to the garden...

Thanks! I will check out those cold hardy ones you mentioned. I have a small orchard, would like to add on a couple figs.

Summersrhythm, most fig enthusiasts container grow in cold zones and store in garage during dormancy. If you want to grow in-ground, it’s advised to container grow for 2-3 years before in-ground planting, and then to heavily protect during winter... this was the advice shared by many on the ourfigs forum.

I have my figs in containers in SoCal for another reason, invasive roots. I’ve been able to get a good enough family-size crop of 40-50 figs/tree by container culture in our long growing season. There are so many fig varieties but the handful I have are those that I really love!

Beautiful photos of roses, fruit and garden scenes. I like CA fruits and veggies.

Could I ask, what is the dark pink rose in the middle? It is so pretty...

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Hi Verdantcroft, it’s Belinda’s Dream. It really has been a splendid bloomer!

Thank you! I've seen so many love/hate discussions on that rose; I think it likes certain areas better than others. Well..... just might have to see how well it does in Virginia!