The First Raspberries!
First Raspberries
Yum! First raspberries! I have mixed feelings about the fact that a bird got that first ripe berry! I decided to leave it there until I went inside from morning watering and transplanting, when I went to get it, it was gone, not on the ground anywhere, but birds had been over there. Well, they are the ones who planted it.
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All images used on this site are copyrighted to Bernadette E. Kazmarski unless otherwise noted and may not be used without my written permission. Please ask if you are interested in using one in a print or internet publication. If you are interested in purchasing a print of this image or a product including this image, check my Etsy shop or Fine Art America profile to see if I have it available already. If you don’t find it there, visit “purchasing” for availability and terms.
Nature’s Decorations
Mother Nature’s Decorations
Mother Nature did a little decorating this week too.
This photo is part of a series call “Unexpected Berries”, inspired by finding brilliant red berries on my burning bush in the dead of winter in three feet of snow. I began photographing all the winter berries I found, on the grayest days. See these images in this set of holiday cards, “Unexpected Berries”.
Don’t forget, too, that ornamentals that have fruits or berries through the winter are lifesavers for birds and other wildlife as well as providing sustenance for bees and butterfliers and other beneficial insects in summer. And sweetly-scented spring flowers. And stunning autumn leaves. Consider adding one or two to your landscape!
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All images used on this site are copyrighted to Bernadette E. Kazmarski unless otherwise noted and may not be used without my written permission. Please ask if you are interested in using one in a print or internet publication. If you are interested in purchasing a print of this image or a product including this image, check my Etsy shop or Fine Art America profile to see if I have it available already. If you don’t find it there, visit “purchasing” for availability and terms.
Raspberries in the Bloom
Raspberry in the Bloom
This is a raspberry long before you find it on the stem. Just opened this morning some of its features may look like another common flower, the rose, the family to which the raspberry belongs. It has a ring of five tiny petals but that puffy center and the unopened bud next along with the leaves, though larger bearing the same compound structure with tiny sawtooth edges, and those thorns.
A raspberry is a compound fruit like a blackberry, raspberry, mulberry and many other berries which are clusters of “drupes”, which sounds like an insult but simply refers to a seed with a fleshy outer covering. Looking at that center part, that ring of stamens around the outside has to get in touch with the fluff of pistils in the center in order for each drupe to be pollinated so you find that perfect hemisphere of juicy blobs that, all clustered together, make up a raspberry. The plant itself can take care of some of this, but not all, and if you’ve ever seen a raspberry with a few blobs missing, this is why.
Ready to Eat
What’s all this talk about bees lately? Apparently the Little Green Bee is a specialist pollinating raspberries. Didn’t see any about this morning, but I do know they visit here pretty regularly. Possibly that’s why, though I don’t have too many raspberry plants, the berries are very successful.
Little Green Bee
Personally, I can already taste the raspberries some morning soon, still cool from overnight.
Berries in a Cup
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All images in this post are copyright © Bernadette E. Kazmarski and may not be used without prior written permission.
Berries in the Green
Berries in the Green
Nearly everything in the garden is fresh and new—and green. These nascent green berries by mid to late summer will be rich and vibrant colors.
The little frizzy cluster at the top are wild grapes which will grow to about the size of a marble and turn a dusty indigo, though most will be eaten by birds as they ripen; these grow on a vine and match with the leaves just behind them that resemble maple leaves, and while the grapes turn purple these leaves will turn bright yellow.
Clockwise is a cluster of little green balls which are Virginia creeper berries which will grow to about the size of a pea and turn deep red violet while the compound leaves—appearing like a cluster of five or six leaves in a circle—will turn brilliant red on the vine.
Hanging underneath them and off to the right are pale green mulberries which resemble blackberries in their elongated shape and cluster of smaller green spheres clumped together, and will turn first red then the same black-purple color as black berries while the leaves on this tree, the wide shiny elongated leaf with the notched edge, will turn yellow.
If you love gardening and watching things grow, please enjoy a recent post by composerinthegarden entitled “We Must Be Mad With Joy” so titled for a quote from Iris Murdoch, http://composerinthegarden.com/2013/05/24/we-must-be-mad-with-joy/.
Truly, I am mad with joy that there is so much life all around me that is constantly changing and growing, and all I need to do is watch.
Red Raspberries
Red Raspberries
They speak for themselves. Having a berry hangover from yesterday, especially seeing these berries at the market.
A Berry Good Time
Black raspberries in a vintage cup.
Breakfast on a lazy Sunday morning? Berries are so June! Berries are everywhere, especially red and black raspberries. I have a few black raspberries in my yard which the birds generously planted, and a couple of years ago I took photos of the berries I harvested and used as models, then ate for breakfast, plus a few other berries in the yard. Just for good measure, here’s another one, and don’t forget to click the link at the bottom to see the slideshow of more berries.
More black raspberries in a vintage cup.
Happy Summer Solstice!
A Berry Good Time
Black raspberries in a vintage cup.
Berries are everywhere, especially red and black raspberries. The photo from the other day was at the farmer’s market. I have a few black raspberries in my yard which the birds generously planted, and a couple of years ago I took photos of the berries I harvested and used as models, then ate for breakfast, plus a few other berries in the yard.
Happy Summer Solstice!
Winter Berries
Winter Berries
I thought the wintercreeper berries were all gone, but on a bright crisp winter morning they are brighter than anything else in the entire world, or at least the world I can see.
You can see their paper little shells pulled back, and perhaps they simply hadn’t opened before the snow began. Though I love the muted tones of winter, and the addition of a brilliant dawn and morning adds unforeseen highlights to all it touches, these bright red orange berries, shiny and new, are truly like candy for the eyes. Perhaps they’ll see me through til the maple buds swell open and the first crocuses open their arms. That is, if the cardinals and blue jays don’t have them for lunch.
Today 