261/365 Tricyrtis 'Taipei Silk', Toad Lily

I often buy plants for my garden that I want to photograph and this is just such a plant. I saw it at Swarkestone Nursery on Thursday and had to get it. Hopefully I'll get to plant it (and about 6 or 8 other plants and shrubs) on Sunday. While the others were out on a short bike ride and the sun was starting to set, I was on the deck with camera with this little beauty. The bloom is about an inch across.

136/365 Orchid

I was given this beautiful orchid plant at around 1.30am this morning as I came away from last night's adventure. It was a thank you gift for agreeing to photograph the May Ball held to raise funds for Curzon School in Quarndon, and also to mark the 150th anniversary of it's founding. Although my kids don't go there, I know several parents whose kids do, and they know I'm game to photograph anything, so they asked me would I? Luckily, I had a cunning plan. Well, actually that's not strictly true, I had a plan which was bettered by Paul, an event photographer who was willing to help me, so we did it together, although almost all the shots taken were taken by me, and almost all the shots purchased were taken by me. It was great fun, but exhausting! You can see some of the photos here; the few with a plain backdrop are Paul's. Thanks Paul :0)

121/365 geranium (hardy)

So many flowers to choose from now spring is here! I thought today's shot was going to be a whitebell, but this shot is better.

74/365 Hellebore in bloom

This hellebore has surprised me this year by blooming beautifully for the first time since I planted it.

I had a little stroll round the garden, with camera of course, and lots of new shoots are breaking through. It was warm, the sun was shining, the wind had dropped since yesterday and I sent hubby out there after lunch to rake up all the twigs on the grass (can't call it a lawn really...!) and he did a little light pruning as well. So now I can add gardening to my 'to do' list, weather permitting, little and often, we get a little further on with it each year.

22/365 Rita's Narcissus

Rita is my wonderful MIL, and this is her Narcissus. She received a lovely glass bowl with 'glass chippings' as the growing medium and 3 narcissus bulbs for Christmas from one of her other sons. I visited Rita today in Sheffield; a wet grey journey there, but a blue sky and sunshine journey back after a lovely few hours catching up on news and having lunch. I love my MIL :0)

16/365 This one, definitely this one... I think

It was going to be an urban scene, then a rustic fence post, but then I took advantage of a brief spell of weak winter sunshine to catch the light on a cyclamen in the conservatory and wrestled the pop-up backdrop into the shot to isolate the bloom. I went into Derby this morning (downtown to you Stateside folks!) to run an errand and took my camera, but it was yet another grey day and the city was grey to match. So I stopped at the park on the way home and shot some ivy on a rustic fence. Then, this afternoon the sun made an effort, and so I had to choose from the resulting shots which was really hard! I love the texture of the stem, the arrangement of the overlapping sepals, the amazingly fine texture in the petals and the most delicate hint of colour. The leaves are amazing too, but I just can't seem to capture the silvery markings.

15/365 Hyacinth Blue

Taken in a friend's kitchen, this hyacinth matches her blue colour scheme beautifully. Low light (again!) so I used the self timer and the camera was on my gorillapod on Joanne's sink. Its a shame I couldn't capture the scent, it was beautiful.