Birds-eye view

Garden photography can be tricky if you're trying to show big picture/design stuff. Close-ups are easy—and beautiful—but they tell you about the flower—which could be anywhere—and not the personality of the garden. I love close-ups, especially for turk's cap lilies, but recently I've been trying to get more big picture shots as well.

One successful method is to get up on a ladder or somewhere else high. I like taking pictures from a second floor window (my husband's study). It gives the false impression that we're mostly pavement, but it does show the tapestry of the different beds. This image shows a good-sized portion of the patio, with the pond and the rose/perennial/lily bed. This raised bed is the bane of my existence. It's not that raised anymore so the plants get their start overshadowed by larger plants and the brick walls of this thing (held together with rebar and wood—a nice engineering job on the part of the former owner). There are also a lot of containers, some of which are shown, most of which are not. Oops, left a deadheading bucket out!

I've also updated my Flickr page; there's a badge at right. It has a lot of shots from this season, and I'll be adding to it.