MFA Boston Japanese Garden

If you are in Boston and in need of a little serenity and beauty, the Japanese Garden at the Museum of Fine Arts is a perfect spot to rest for a bit, away from the busy world. I can imagine a half hour of reflection and relaxation, sitting on a bench while eating lunch in the peaceful garden.

As you enter through the kabukimon-style gate, take a deep breath and let your worries drift away for a while. Enjoy the karesansui garden, the beautiful plants that bring color to the landscape, the dry waterfall, and the stone lanterns (toro) found on the Japanese Garden grounds.

Another name for the MFA Japanese Garden, Tenshin-en is "Garden of the Heart of Heaven". As you walk or sit in the contemplative garden, you will feel how apt the alternate name is. 

To learn more about this beautifully peaceful garden, visit the MFA Boston site by clicking this link 

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Colorful Wildflowers in the Garden

 Add some bright color to your garden or yard with a pretty mixture of wildflowers. You can buy the see packets in the spring and sprinkle them in the empty spaces in your garden. 

When you plant wildflower seeds, it's always a fun surprise waiting to see which flowers will bloom in your garden. There are even bee and butterfly mixes that you can buy to help encourage pollination in your area.

 Most of the seed packets say that they are annual (meaning that you will have to plant seeds each year), but I have found that each spring we have 3 or 4 plants that come back from the previous year.

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Wishing Well at Point Defiance Gardens

 If you visit the beautiful gardens at Point Defiance Park in Tacoma, make sure to stop by the flower filled wishing well. It's a lovely spot to rest or take a photo.

The public gardens at Point Defiance Park in Tacoma, Washington are so beautiful. You will see many different local flowers, bushes, and trees; as well as a lovely rose garden, a herb garden, and the ever beautiful Japanese garden.

If you have an hour of free time, take the opportunity to visit the free gardens in the North End of Tacoma. You won't regret stopping to smell the roses. 

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Evening Sun Sunflower

This time of year the sunflowers are opening their petals and showing their bright and beautiful faces. There are so many different varieties of sunflower that you can plant in your garden or even see on the roadside.

My favorite has been the Evening Sun Sunflowers. Their vibrant petals that mimic the color of the setting sun add a depth of richness to your garden once they bloom. 

What are your favorite sunflowers? I'm already thinking about the ones I want to add to my garden next year!

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Ashton Gardens Tulip Festival

Early Spring is such a beautiful time. Everything goes from brownish-gray to deep green with splashes of color from the newly opening flowers. Colorful tulips are one of the first of the flowers to appear in gardens here and I love the different varieties that can be found.

At Thanksgiving Point in Lehi, Utah you can find Ashton Gardens - a 55-acre oasis in this mountainous desert. We have visited in all the seasons and it is always pretty, but during the spring it is extra beautiful while they are having their tulip festival. They have hundreds of varieties of tulips to see as you walk along the path by Monet Lake, through the Secret Gardens, around the Waterfall Amphitheater, and through the rest of the 15 tranquil gardens.

The design of the tulip groupings throughout the garden change each year, so it is like you are visiting a new garden each time. Every time we have gone it has been amazingly stunning to see the variety of color and type of tulips.

We have visited both during nice weather and on a rainy day. The beauty of the flowers doesn't change, but the crowds are definitely less during the overcast or rainy days. Here in Utah you really have no idea what weather you will have in April and early May, so make sure to chech the weather forecast for Lehi since there is so much variation in different parts of Utah and Salt Lake counties.

Plan on spending hours at Ashton Gardens so you can see as much as possible. It's always smart to pack snacks and water. There are quite a few scenic areas where you can sit on benches, next to ponds, or on the lush green grass and rest your feet while you stay hydrated and renew your energy with a treat.

Make sure to check the Ashton Gardens website to see what upcoming events will be there to enjoy.

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Prickly Thistle Opening

When thinking of pretty summer flowers, I'll have to admit that the thistle doesn't come to mind first. There are roses, dahlias, marigolds, lilies, and peonies that bloom with lovely colors and heavenly scents.

Beauty can be found in different ways though, as long as we are willing to look at them in a different way. I was out for a drive last week and pulled down a side road that had quite a few thistles blooming.

This one that was just begining to open caught my eye though. The thick green layers of leaves with the bright purple inside starting to open up was stunning. The first layers of the flower opening mimic the pointy green outer leaves. While not traditionally beautiful, my nature loving eye couldn't look away.

In a day or so, the prickly but beautiful thistle will open up fully and become a puffy purple flower you can see as it holds it's head up tall over the grass fields.

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White Spring Blossoms

Spring blossoms have come to the trees and they are so lovely to look at. Delicate white and pink flowers dot the trees and remind us of the beauty that can be found in the beautiful world around us.

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Sunflower in the Snow

The snow falls softly on the sunflower which bloomed so prettily last autumn. Not a normal sight that you expect to see....a flower from the fall and winter season weather clashing in a stark difference. While my garden could use some clearing, I'm glad that I had the opportunity to capture this beautiful moment.

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Wildflower Bouquet

This week, we picked the last of the wildflowers from our garden. While it is a bit strange to have flowers still blooming in November, they have been a beautiful addition to the fall landscape. The lovely colors have brightened our days as they intermix with the orange and brown of the fallen leaves.

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Honeybee on Sunflower

Fall sunflowers bring so much brightness to the garden. As the sunflowers begin to open and mature in the middle, the bees flock to the colorful flowers to taste of the plentiful pollen.

Each morning and afternoon when checking the garden for new flowers opening, I saw plenty of honeybees buzzing among the flowers. They especially loved to visit the wide face of the sunflowers. One honeybee would spend up to five minutes visiting different sections of the sunflowers as it collected the soft yellow pollen.

I imagine the honeybees being happy little insects after visiting the happily colored sunflower. Do happy honeybees produce more delicious honey?

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Center of Sunflower

Bright yellow petals happily greet the sunshine when you have sunflowers in your garden. These beautiful flowers bring a burst of happiness to the garden with their vibrant color.

The center of sunflowers gradually open, spreading their happy faces and their bright pollen for the bees and butterflies to come and enjoy.

I've never grown sunflowers before, and this one was a happy accident too. I spread a few packages of wildflowers into an empty plot of our garden and waited to see what came up. Imagine my surprise when a sunflower started to grow!

I plan on buying some sunflower seed packets next spring to add to my garden again. There are so many different varieties and colors. Which ones are your favorite?

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Rose with Water Droplets

When was the last time you paused in your daily life to stop and smell the roses? Most mornings I take a bit of time to look at my flowers to see what new blossoms have added color to the day.

With the morning sun shining on my roses, I was struck by the simple beauty of water droplets on the petals of the delicate newly opened rose.

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Bachelor Button Flowers of Many Colors

My daughter loves the color blue, so when we were planning our garden for the year I bought a packet of bachelor button seeds for her to plant in her section of the garden. She sprinkled the seeds and waited for them to bloom.

During the nightly watering of our garden, we would check on the progress of the blooms. It took every so long (well, to a 9 year old) before the flowers began to open. The first flowers were all a lovely shade of blue, just as expected.

As the other bachelor buttons began to grow, we noticed that some of the buds seemed different. The bachelor button seeds were intermixed with other wildflowers so we didn't think anything of it. Until the next few opened.

I had no idea that bachelor buttons were found in any other colors. While the pink, purple, fuschia, light blue, and almost white flowers were a surprise....they weren't a disappointment. We have had a good time looking at the new flower buds as they begin to grow and guessing what color they will end up being once bloomed.

So, we ended up loving the bachelor buttons of many colors in our garden. While my daughter was partial to the blue ones still, I enjoy the deep purple and almost white ones the best. Next year we will get some more seeds and see what happens. Oh, the wonder of the natural world and the surprises that are found there.

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Tiny Frog Among the Geraniums

When watering the flowers in your planter, you never know what will surprise you among the leaves. One day, my neighbor was watering her geraniums when all of a sudden this little green frog jumped out from among the leaves. While the water was probably a surprise to him, I'm sure he enjoyed the refreshing liquid on a warm evening.

Rodrigo the Frog had a long journey - he had been playing in the bushes at his house when his human family lost track of him. Rodrigo was a brave soul and hopped through yards and across streets, until he found a nice patch of green leaves to nestle into. I'm not sure how long he was hiding out in the geraniums before my neighbor was surprised by her unexpected guest.

He spent a nice evening having a photo shoot and being oohed and aahed over by my children. His family was eventually found and he said "goodbye" then returned to his home. What a lovely adventure for a little frog!

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Tiny Purple Flowers

While on an evening walk by myself, I passed by a field full of these tiny purple flowers. They were so delicate and I thought how neat it was they were leaning toward the setting sun, trying to soak up as much of the golden warmth that they could.

The path I took for my walk that evening was a street I usually walk along and I am very familiar with the trees and bushes on my side of the street. That evening I looked across the street to the vacant field and it was dotted with specks of purple. I crossed the street to get a better look and found these 2 inch high flowers.

Keeping my eyes open to the loveliness of the everyday world enriches and beautifies my day. I hope it does the same for you!

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Bee Sitting on Lavender

This year, the lavender bush by my front porch has exploded with blossoms. The purple flowers are beautiful to look at and smell so wonderful and inviting too. I'm not the only one to think so. Little fuzzy bumblebees and white delicate butterflies have been flitting around the flowers all week. Who can blame them though - the days are warm, the flowers are fragrant, and the sprigs of lavender are the perfect place for them to rest and collect pollen.

Our winter lasted quite long this year - we had snow into May, which was a big surprise. My lavender plants looked quite sad and I worried that they wouldn't bloom. I'm not the best gardener and didn't prune back the dead flowers when my lavender plant bloomed last fall. While that made an interesting subject for winter photography, it worried me for the health of the plant this spring. The week after our last snow of the year, I removed the dried stems from the plant. I'm happy to say that my lavender plant has more than doubled it's size from last year.

While I water my plants on my porch, I always make time to watch the bees as they go from stem to stem looking for the perfect pollen to take back to their hive. I imagine that honey would taste wonderful!

I've picked a few sprigs to add to the hanging welcome basket by my front door and I love how it looks! I think this year I will have enough flowers to collect to make delightful and fragrant sachets.

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Water Lilies at Monet Lake

One of my favorite painters is Claude Monet. The tones and colors the he used in his paintings seem to speak to me. His soft and somewhat hazy Impressionist paintings have touched my heart and imagination for years. I believe my favorite is "The Waterlily Pond With The Japanese Bridge".

When visiting the Thanksgiving Point Ashton Gardens a few years ago, I was so pleased to find a section of the gardens called Monet Lake that was full of these simple and beautiful water lilies. I was able to walk along the pond and experience a peaceful time while enjoying nature.

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Fresh Spring Blooming Daffodils

Depending on where you live, daffodils are one of the first flowers that break through the dirt during the spring. Their yellow or white faces open up toward the sun as they sit atop their green stalks.



When we lived in South Carolina, daffodils popped up through the ground and bloomed in early March during the same week of my oldest's birthday. She thought is was so exciting that they came up just in time to celebrate with her. While they come up later here in Utah, we still enjoy seeing them just as much.

What are your favorite flowers?

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Tulips in Provo Utah

I love the early spring flowers that come up. The first green sprouts that break through the dirt make me excited for warmer weather and the anticipation of the beautiful blossoms that will arrive.

Tulips come in so many varieties and colors. When I was saw these lovely flowers at the LDS Provo Temple, I knew I had to take a photograph of them. The yellows remind me of the sunshine and warmth.

What are your favorite flowers?

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Early Spring Pink Cherry Blossoms

Spring has arrived in Utah. The morning of the first day of Spring, the cherry blossom trees seemed to bloom overnight with their beautiful pink and white blossoms. It's been lovely to see them opening up this week and brightening the dreary winter landscape with their colors.

Seeing the new green shoots as they come up and the buds of the tulips and daffodils waiting to make their entrance on the spring landscape provides a reminder of the beauty of this wonderful Earth that we live on.

You can see more of my photography on my Pinterest Board

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