Moso Bamboo / Phyllostachys heterocycla pubescens

This is Moso Bamboo as it is most commonly called. This particular plant is a 2002 seedling I acquired from a fellow bamboo enthusiast, bamboo expert, and Nurseryman Gib Cooper of Gold Coast, Oregon ( Tradewinds Bamboo Nursery ).

 I'ts  been in the ground for about 10 years, has grown to 35 feet in height and 2 inches in diameter on a infertal Pine ridge in Southwest Louisiana, way out in a meadow in the woods where it gets absolutely no attention. I take people to see it every now and then, everyone loves it.

 In it's native environment in The Mountains of China, it can grow to an impressive 8 inches in diameter and 80 foot in height in it's man like  life cycle of 80 years, after which it flowers and then dies, sending it's hopes, dreams, and love into the future in unimaginable numbers of prayer-like seeds, each and every one possessing the power of oneness, to be of different shape, form, color, and behavior.

 Likened to men, what the power of many cannot do, the one has all power over. A sort of Benevolent Dictatorship is true.

 In the baron brown confusion of the dying bamboo forest, while the impatient man believes the world has ended, countless wise little seeds see an eternal beauty, an unbeknownst new garden in a distant time.

tp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phyllostachys_edulis

Yosemite Valley

When the spirit of Beauty passes, the physics of time is altered in five seconds of magic. An ever-returning symphony plays, to an elusive summoners call.

  
In the presence of its glory men are forced to remember its sovereignty, in the purest form of question_ the instinctive fire of the crucible states it's case, 
   
followed by an awe inspired affirmation_ the light in which we men must all agree and admire. 

It is I believe, after a life of ponderance, a time within a realm. .

http://www.nps.gov/yose/index.htm 

Musa Velutina Banana

Musa Velutina is an ornamemtal banana that has  grown outside my Southwestern Louisiana zone 8b  kitchen window for 15 or 20 years, freezing to the ground most winters and returning to this form every summer. The mature grove is 6 foot high and almost as wide. It loves rainy weather or daily drip irrigation, inexpensive 13-13-13 fertilizer 2 or 3 times a year, temperatures from 57 to 90 degrees F. , but will tolerate more heat. Bananas love full sun early May to end of September, then get sleepy in this climate. Over all a most gratifying plant to grow here.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musa_velutina

Lake Louise, Victoria Glacier

Photography is a math equation of how to create joy in your life and that of others, a great learning experience, in a lifetime's walk down a long garden path.

 A child becomes a man, who's purpose is to study the world around him, and quickly learn his rightful role as subordinate to an infinitely wonderful teacher of art, math, science, ideas unknown and grand, and that accordingly, a formal respect is due.

For the man to be complete, to see God, he must become a child again, proficient at being little. These are exactly the things, for what the depths of your soul is looking through the viewfinder, I can assure you. Don't believe less. Remember as you ponder the frame, the greatest photographer of all, looks back.

Learning to see the subject takes many years, it takes sufficient tears, requires long suffering, a lifetime maybe, understanding life's hard lessons, the depths of many fields, sorrows of great loss, assumptions of difficult responsibility, hard failure's resolve, far ranging vistas outside the self, an absolute confidence in beauty and truth, a seat of your pants knowledge of the illusive golden light, the power of clouds for light reduction, and to define the vastness of the sky, count the distance perspective and provide a degree of hope that is new and mysterious.

Only one brief little picture so short, a sparkle on a distant sea. What could it say ? What should it ?

Lake Louise is fed by the melt-water of Mount Victoria's receding glacier. The blue green color of many Northern lakes is due to suspended rock dust ground by the force of gravity on rivers of ice with embedded boulders grinding down glacial paths.

In the far Northern U. S. and Canadian Rockies, during periods of drought, mountain forest fires caused by natural forces are always burning, creating a haze in the landscape. It's possible to see from one vantage point, several separate fires burning at once, mountains apart in different directions. There are no fires in this image, but the haze from them is definitely present. Everything white is clouds or glacial ice.

Canadian Rockies   Banff, Alberta Canada 

https://www.google.com/#q=banff+alberta 

Nymphea Wanvisa

Don't take your eye off the prize. Everything you will ever do in your life_ will be more trouble than you thought, cost more money than you figured, take far longer than you had hoped... If your plans are justifiable and your heart is true, you will succeed. If your heart is untrue, you will always loose.  


Created  2009 by waterlily hybridizer Dr. Nopchia Chansilpa of Thialand.


http://iwgs.org/wanvisa-earns-best-new-waterlily-2010/

Solar Calendar Pictograph

Young man,

If you cherish a special idea rightfully yours, hold it close to your heart. Keep it secret if you must. Nurture it, scrutinize it, purify it, educate it, keep it safe all your life. Until which time you will know_  and only then give it purpose, make it fly. Don't let them kill your dream.

______________________

Solar calender pictographs are few and far between in the rock art of the desert Southwestern U.S... Standard pigments used in pictographs include red iron oxide, charcoal, white clay, ground malachite, and azurite mixed with saliva or  vegetable extracts to make a paste.

Photo By Paula R.

These basic concoctions have endured millennium beneath alcoves and cliff overhangs protected from the elements, conveying their messages across time. 

These people were far more advanced in their understanding of the patterns of the Earth and its seasons than we. They understood the power of written words, and that men lived within them. They personally knew death, and life giving sustenance, thus called them by rightful name. They appreciated the simple design of life and fluently spoke its pure language.

Canyon Pintado National Historic District  -  Sun Dagger Site
Rangely, Colorado

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ca%C3%B1on_Pintado

Musa Ruby Red Ornamental Banana

Ornamental Bananas are a joy. Most bloom all summer long, right up until frost. Others are grown for their fantastic leaf color, downright spectacles worthy of conversation.

Though they perform much better in the ground here in South Louisiana, they can be grown in pots in doors or out.

Small in stature, most are under 8 feet tall, half as wide, non invasive, and non edible. The small hand of bananas on this flower ( left ) will turn a ruby red color ( lower right ) in a few days.

Ornamental banana plants are no mess, easily trimmed or cut to the ground after freezing in the fall, which most will do during winters in zone 8b and cooler. They return to near full form  every year from the corm, to make you happy again darling.

Bananas love daily watering, full sun, mulch around base, and fertilizer 2 or 3 times a summer. However, they can do with less when your busy. In the Southeastern U. S. after established, their not fussy and can withstand pure neglect and rebound. I know this see. Huh.

The ornamental banana is a messenger poet. It has such the way with its few words of preciseness, a short recital in a summer's time, a tale of the expert witness of The High Court_  that beauty is complete in its smallest state.

.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musa_ornata

Magnolia Grandiflora Blossom

You will be my home,
the truth that I seek,
my ambitions, my peace, my rest.

I will know your heart,
honor you in your house,
where I wait for you all my days.

Search my soul,
cleans my thoughts.
Keep me humble,
so I will hear your voice.

Make me whole,
that I might see your face.

It's what the bee said.

Red Curcuma

What man can have,

can be learned in a season,
trust in the goodness of time.

The quiet-hearted spirits of the garden,
will protect you from heavy material things,
and the pride for which lusts, your pure heart.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curcuma_australasica


 




I've grown this plant for 15 or 20 years in various places in my yard here in zone 8b South Louisiana, where it is frozen to the ground most winters. It never has bloomed until this past record cold winter I thought would surly kill it. What can a man know?

There is this vastly powerful energy see_ that mysteriously overrules the most earnest attempts of the very men that seek it, and it's like God to them.

Tropical Waterlily Tanzanite

Well she's walking through the clouds,
with a circus mind that's running wild,
butterflies and zebras,
and moonbeams and fairy tales.
that's all she ever thinks about.
Riding with the wind.

When I'm sad she comes to me,
with a thousand smiles she gives to me free.
it's alright, she says it's alright,
take anything you want from me, anything.
Fly on little wing.
Jimi Hendrix

Nymphaea Tanzanite developed by Florida Aquatic Nurseries

Cedar Breaks National Monument

A lifetime is a high mountain
from which to look__
search your soul__
weigh your deeds__
find your heart__
across the years.

In this vista, the fleeting nature of time, impossible beauty of space, and the magical qualities of this human chance are all vividly evident for all to see, and exceedingly patient for those slow to understand, this view_  that we all must.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cedar_Breaks_National_Monument

http://www.nps.gov/cebr/index.htm 

Coastal Redwood Tree, Sequoia sempervirens

Young man,

Space, time, knowledge, travel, success, happiness, beauty, etc. happen or do not in the environment created for it, from within

a state of independent solitude,
a pure and uncorrupted quiet,
a gracious spring, a fertile soil,
a trusted seed.

Photo by Paula R.





Coastal Redwood Forest, Northern California

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sequoia_sempervirens

Bull Thistle

The versatility in nature graciously allows for the curved line,
architect of designs infinite in variety,
voices with stories forever to tell_
another season in an irrefutably beautiful language,
instilled promises of yet another chance to see,
the methodically forgiving kindred circle,
patient teacher in quiet whispering chant.

This is the way of the humble Earth,

says a mere weed that nobody wants.

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thistle

Azalea Delaware Valley White

I don't have to wonder my duty,
it's an earnest attempt to see the beauty,
and understand the rules of this fleeting chance,

infinite consideration paid in advance.
 ________________________________________________

Delaware Valley White azalea is a small to medium, acid loving, single, profusely flowering, small leaved shrub to 4 foot in height and slightly wider. Because of its small leaves it's not an easy plant to keep attractive before and after blooming as are other azaleas, but in the third week of March in South Louisiana it will make you proud with more than its share of pure white single flowers. Azaleas do best in part shade on sandy acidic soil under Longleaf Yellow Pine Trees which have long tap roots resembling that of a human tooth. These deep rooted pines don't compete with shallow rooted azaleas for moisture, as they absorb water from deeper stratum of earth. Benefiting from the moisture retaining pine needle leaf shed twice a year which acidifies the  soil, the Azaleas likewise benefit the pines as a living mulch, and trap for air born organic matter and dust which feeds both plants. Groupings of both pines and azaleas are often done at the same time. Plant azaleas early spring and don't let them dry out the first season, this is the key to growing azaleas. After establishment Delaware Valley White and most other azaleas are drought tolerant in the Southeastern U.S..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azalea

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinus_palustris