Friday, August 21, 2009

Gardening Gone Wild: Down on Your Knees

The subject for August’s Picture This Photo Contest at Gardening Gone Wild is "Down on Your Knees." Garden photos must be taken from knee level or lower. There are some fantastic entries so far. As judge photographer David Perry says, "too many of us take the majority of our pictures from standing height, which really limits both our visual understanding of a garden and the sense of intimacy we can capture." Amen! One of my favorite things to do these days is get right into the middle of a flower, much like a bee might, to get to know it more intimately.


And so my entry for the contest is this Euphorbia milii. It sits in a pot right outside our sliding glass door, which means I walk past it every day. I tend to give it a wide berth to avoid getting snagged by its huge thorns, but stopped one day recently to take a closer look at its flowers. Look how beautiful and intricate they are when seen from this vantage point (you can click on the photo to see it larger). I guess all those thorns are intended to protect this treasure.

For those of you not familiar with this plant, each flower is about a quarter to half an inch across. The photo below shows more of the plant. Did I mention it has thorns?


Instead of complaining that the rosebush is full of thorns,
be happy that the thorn bush has roses.
~Proverb

4 comments:

  1. Lovely photo, the color of that Euphorbia is like a carnival in a tiny bloom!

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  2. That's a great way to describe it! And thanks for the compliment. I just wandered over to your lovely blog and will have to visit again soon.

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  3. My grandmother has a huge one of these I loved the red flowers it had.
    Great picture, hope the jury sees that too!

    Have a nice weekend!

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  4. I couldn't agree more...it's fun to vary the perspective on flora, or anything really.
    I was so bored this spring I stood on my head taking pics of my tulips...when I was proofing the images I figured if the "upside down" look was what I was going for I might as well have rotated the shot...Hah!
    I also want to thank you for your thoughtful comment this morning...I really appreciate your input, I enjoy reading your blog as well.

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Thank you for stopping by and sharing your thoughts. I truly enjoy hearing from you!