Pic(k) of the Week: Hibernal narcissus

Click on the image for a larger, hi-res version (on Flickr).

An obligatory annual photo of a daffodil.
— or —
I can't resist taking a portrait of a narcissus in late winter!

The large daffodil — white with a central white 'trumpet'— is an Ice Follies cultivar; the smaller are Jetfire cultivars — yellow with orange 'trumpets' *. All, I admired and photographed in a private garden in DeKalb County, Georgia, USA, on 3 March 2026.

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Lee Morgan: Ceora
Album: Cornbread
Label: Bluenote (Recorded: 1965 | Released: 1967)

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Pic(k) of the Week: Holy hellebore

"Listen with the ear of your heart." 

— Prologue, Rule of St. Benedict (c. 530 CE).

A Lenten rose (hellebore) blooms in mid-winter.

A small garden on the grounds of Monastery of Our Lady of the Holy Spirit in Rockdale County, Georgia, USA. 3 February 2024.


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Pic(k) of the Week: Tiny-gnomial

Sitting by a red door,

Nestled in the crook of a fallen tree,

He serenades passersby,

From his tiny-gnomial garden.

Into each life, some whimsy should fall. Forgive me, if you will, the doggerel and pun.

Seen (heard?) in Decatur, Georgia, USA, on 24 April 2022.

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Pic(k) of the Week: Rapeseed stalk

A stalk of rapeseed (Brassica napus) blooms in Decatur’s Kitchen Garden —an immigrant-operated community garden— in Decatur, Georgia, USA. 16 April 2021.

In the cabbage family, rapeseed is the plant from which the vegetable cooking-oil, canola (an adman's portmanteau of 'Canada' and 'ola', the latter itself meaning 'oil, low acid'), is extracted. ^* The re-name may have seemed more, err, palatable.

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Pic(k) of the Week: Poetry, in repose

The gardens of our lives
Were our Family and the Arts.
We live on -
While our precious legacies
Continue to bloom and flourish.

This small bronze sculpture —of a young girl reading a book— sits atop a small stone pedestal in Cator Woolford Gardens, just east of Atlanta, Georgia, USA.

The poem above is carved into the open pages of the book. The sculpture itself is named Poetry. A plaque below reads: "Dedicated on June 12, 2002, in loving memory of [sisters] Isabelle Woolford Kennedy and Charlotte Woolford Crawley." The artist is Teena Marie Stern (of whom I've found little information).

A peaceful moment. 10 December 2020.

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Pic(k) of the Week: Sibley's Ferst Fountain

Into each life, a little whimsy must fall.

A ceramic mural by Atlanta, Georgia artist Christine Sibley (1948-1999) adorns the Ferst Fountain [at the Atlanta Botanical Garden]. Water naiads are represented in bas relief peering out from behind the waterfall. This fountain, donated in honor of [past trustee?] Helen Montag Ferst, was built of gunite in 1985. Sibley obtained financing and added the ceramic facade in 1990. In 2012, the fountain received much-needed repair.

I snapped this image at the Atlanta Botanical Garden, in Atlanta, Georgia, USA, on 8 November 2020.

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Pic(k) of the Week: Hornswoggling hornworm

A tomato hornworm (Manduca quinquemaculata) munches on a tomato plant, in a garden, in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. 5 September 2020.

The tomato hornworm is a green caterpillar that is the larva (reaching a length of up to 4 inches) of the hawk moth. Found across North America and Australia, it commonly feeds on tomatoes, eggplants, peppers, and potatoes. It gets its name from a dark projection on its posterior end and its use of tomatoes as host plants.
— Wikipedia.

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Pic(k) of the Week: Garden Party

The local shelter-at-home COVID-19 order permits me to take the dog out for short walks. I take my camera along.

On a recent walk, he and I saw this tea 'party' adjacent to the hiker/biker Stone Mountain Trail, in DeKalb County (Scottdale), Georgia, USA. 1 April 2020.

Was it a garden party or splendor in the grass? Cue Hugh Masakela (or Ricky Nelson, vice-versa).

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Pic(k) of the Week: Geranium among the licorice

Red! A closeup of geraniums blooming in a bed of silver licorice.

Using flash under the directly overhead midday sun. As seen in a garden, in Atlanta, Georgia, on 11 June 2019.

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Pic(k) of the Week: Hydrangea blooms blue.

Hydrangea macrophylla —also called bigleaf hydrangeas and mophead hydrangeas and French hydrangeas— are a staple of the American South, such as this one in Atlanta, Georgia, the petals of its inflorescence only beginning to turn blue on 7 May 2018.

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Pic(k) of the Week: Earth Goddess in summer

The Earth Goddess 'living' sculpture, as seen in the Cascades Garden, of the Atlanta Botanical Garden, in, naturally, Atlanta, Georgia, on 30 July 2017.

The immense Earth Goddess has become a signature exhibit at the Garden. The living sculpture, installed in 2013, was originally designed and fabricated by artisans from Mosaïcultures Internationales de Montréal. Mosaiculture is the centuries-old horticultural art of covering fabricated steel forms with a planting material and "plugging," or planting, it with tens of thousands of tiny plants.

At 30 feet wide by 25 feet tall, the sculpture weighs nearly 29 tons and holds more than 18,000 individual plants, which are trimmed weekly to maintain the flowing lines. Some of the plants used for a palette of color and texture include Pilea glauca, Lantan camara (Florida Red Mound), Alternanthera (Petites Feuilles Verts), Ipomoea batatas (Sweetheart Purple), Durante erecta (Lemon Lime), and Hypoestes sanguinolenta (Splash Select Pink).

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