Mid-October Panorama and Garden Bloom Day

I was able to get ouside to take some pictures earlier this week, but haven't been able to write up a post yet.  I's mid October so I went out to get pictures for the panorama.  Since the most "popping" elements were the Montauk Dasies I was glad to be able to get some pictures in diffuse light.  I've been reading several books on photography lately and playing with my camera settings.  For these daisies a diffuse light is best because the strong white blossoms will not be washed out bu direct sunlight.  These daisies are all over the hill from end to end, and even out in the front yard under the weeping cherry tree.

The Montauk Daisies are the white blossoms that have taken over the hill. I got some pictures to have for the Garden Bloom Day over at May Dream Garden.

I've been waiting all summer for these to bloom. I couldn't remember what they were and all summer these bushes have been adding a nice deep green foliage, but I've been waiting to see them in bloom.

Now that I've seen them I've been able to identify them (thanks to help from a Facebook group called Plant Identification.) It's a great group for getting help identifying what a plant is - just join the group then post a picture of two of what you have and you'll get suggestions about what it is.  Several people made suggestions and I looked them up and agree that these are indeed Montauk Daisies.

I was able to print out the panorama pictures from this summer and Gloria and I were able to look at them side by side.  We noticed a couple of things. An interesting observation (by Gloria) was in the growth of the holly trees we have outside the fence in the holly grove. We had these planted there to grow into a natural barrier to block views into the yard from the street.  Here are the pictures from April and from October showing this summer's growth.

April 2014

October 2014

And here is a picture from when they were planted in April 2011,

April 2011

They've come a long way, and so has the yard and the gardener.

And just because I really like this picture, I'm going to post it one more time.  I sent this to the channel 9 meteorologist, Topper Shutt, and he used it on the air and gave it an "A+." Then he tweeted it out.