Creating an outing for dad but mostly practicing with my new Canon Powershot S95 before our Great Train Adventure we again arrived at the American Rose Center in early April before the official season.
At the reflecting pool behind the welcome center even fully zoomed out the new camera just does not have much width of field although at f/5.0 the depth of field is excellent with everything clear from the grass in the foreground to the clouds in the sky. Actually this huge depth of field will be one of my greater problems like trying to blur out the background with the roses but Photoshop can handle that.
Trying to select a contrast of images I really liked the old debre against the new flowers.
Finally finishing up this visit is a closer view of the fountain in the formal garden you can see in the background of the view from last year. Again I seem to have a nice clear image from front to back but I can't back up far enough to capture the whole width without going down the hill and loosing the view. I was not thinking of it at the time but I probably could have done a couple of shots and sitched them for the wider view. At the time I took these I did not have the latest greatest panorama program that I do now.
Again here at the end of April we sort of snuck into the garden before the official May 1st opening date.
The previous pictures did not really show that the garden is actually "in the pines". Parts have been cleared as required for several displays but we are still here in the Louisiana pines.
In some of the sheltered places the azaleas were still in bloom but roses really prefer full sun like here in the most formal part of the garden. They really don't have the large formal gardens like the Tyler Rose Garden or the Park of Roses in Columbus, Ohio.
If I need to have roses my preference is these wild roses that have been used as separators between various displays. I tried to make a patriotic display with the red and white but unfortunately roses do not come in blue so we have to settle for pink.
Getting to the more traditional individual blossoms they do have a reasonably wide variety. I could probably go on and on with other examples but to me they do get repetitive. I did notice I failed to include a yellow rose so that will need to be in Texas.
Lori's favorite is these iris which were blooming in one of the bog areas of the garden.
And finally finishing up this visit to the garden is another iris for Lori and a typical example of the the rose beds maintained by my father and grandfather. Dad had this type of bed around the front walk and several small ones in the back yard. If I didn't know better I would say this round bed was in my grandfather's front yard.
The headquarters and gardens of the American Rose Center are located in Greenville, Louisiana just a little west of Shreveport and convenient to taking dad on an outing since we get in free with our garden membership. Here are just a few pictures and I'll show more as we return again and again.
This is April and rose season is not until mid summer. Actually we sort of snuck in since the garden is not officially open until the beginning of May. My dad's father was the avid rose gardener and had all sorts of techniques to make them thrive in western New York. Dad was rather indifferent but did maintain some roses in his garden. I really have other preferences like coleus and I've always thought roses were a whole lot of bush for very little flower. Also in comparison to the Park of Roses in Columbus, Ohio I have always been rather disappointed here although I do avoid the sweltering heat of the peak season.