Snow on the Mountain photo caption (edited version): As August’s heat and humidity drape over us like a blanket, the refreshing green and white blossoms of Snow on the Mountain emerge to dot our landscape with the cool promise of later seasons. Snow on the […]
Folks, I wanted so badly to do justice to morning glory in the studio. A chaotic, octopus-like mass of this crazy climbing vine had claimed a stretch of ditch a few miles from my house and grabbed my eye every time I drove by it […]
Shooting elderberries in bloom was so rewarding (and instructive) that I eagerly looked forward to spending more time with them when their berries formed. All the lessons learned from my first go-‘round still applied at this stage in the elderberry lifecycle – yep, elderberry branches […]
Frustration, thy name is partridge pea: this seemingly-innocent flower is my white whale, my nemesis, my kryptonite. Even after attempting to photograph it more times than I care to reveal, the only thing I know for sure about it is that it grows in a […]
Poor wild bergamot. These unfortunate flowers look like a 7th grade bad perm: awkward and a little disheveled. It’s a shame. Wild bergamot – also known as wild beebalm – is an agreeable lavender color and popular with bees and all kinds of other insects. […]
Butterflies of Iowa, rejoice! Come the last week of July, common ironweed bursts into purple-fuchsia bloom to attract your eyes and fill your bellies. Of course, this year it attracted my eyes too, so I shooed the butterflies away from a few stalks to bring […]
Early in this photography project, before most of the plants had been identified, a concerned friend asked if one specimen could possibly be giant hogweed. I was pretty sure it wasn’t … almost sure … umm, not sure enough. So I googled up giant hogweed […]
I can’t look at red clover without smiling. Seriously, take another look at it. I’ll bet you’re smiling too. Clover is a friend to everyone in the country. It used to be planted for use in hay before alfalfa came into favor but still lives […]
When someone says “wildflower,” there’s a pretty good chance you think of a brown eyed Susan. These are probably the most well-known prairie flower, and for good reason – you can hardly travel a back road in Iowa in mid-summer without passing so many brown […]
Foxes are having a moment of popularity now – it seems like every hipster strolls their urban street sporting a coffee mug or phone case or t-shirt with a cute little fox face peering from it. Fair enough. Foxes are endearing and so are their […]
