Last pick from the Botanics

 Bench and Flare

Backlit grass (there was a bad case of unwanted flare in this one which I cropped out. There's a fine line between too much sunshine, making for too high contrast and flare, and that light that gives any picture a lift from the dump-it into the keep-it category. Some from Saturday have too high contrast and aren't worth keeping.

Backlit cyclamen (in the Alpine House)

Cropped this photo and cleaned up the line across it to make this card for the MMTPT challenge this week. Printing in on linen-effect paper has washed out the vibrancy of hte colours but gave me the abstract effect I was hoping for.

Shooting up: I always like bracken. It grows pretty much everywhere here, but I have particular memories of the fields behind the cottage in Killybegs, Co. Donegal, which is really the first place I remember from family holidays. The fields were edged with fuchsia hedges, and full of bracken, sheep and the sound of corn-crakes. At least it was something to compete with the smell of the outdoor chemical toilet!! I also remember picking ripe fronds and laying them on paper, to get the pattern from the spores as they fell off - and doing the same with mushrooms, too.

 

Shooting out: the old Cactus House and the Waterlily House are the last of the Curvilinear range waiting for restoration. Seems like they've been waiting a long time, when the last time they grew the giant Amazonian Waterlily was in 2003.