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Saturday, April 10, 2010

Buds: The Potential of Developing into Something Beautiful

Patricia Youngquist uses words and images to tell stories about her passions. Based in New York, she currently is authoring a series of nature books on birds of the city. Now in Apple’s iBooks store @ https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/words-in-our-beak/id1010889086?mt=11

Every flower bud has the potential of developing into something beautiful. At this time, I have an array of buds in my urban terrace garden, and the exquisite  bud in the photograph above is from my tree peonyPaeonia suffruitticosa, a shrub that is known to last longer than the gardeners that plant them, so at least I will leave some legacy. I had hoped to leave some legacy of meaningful writings, but often I fail to write about things that interest me as it might prove to be embarrassing, or hurt someone's feelings; and so these days, my muse is busy with my gardening endeavors and my peony tree, which I have had for only one year, has proved to be inspirational.
For a number of years I've had fun watching various vines trail up a pole at the northeast corner of my terrace. When I first started gardening I had Morning Glories and this annual vine gave me pleasure for a number of years, especially seeing their heart-shaped leaves and vibrant azure colored flowers. At that time, I was not a "morning person" and often missed the flowers, which were only open from dawn to mid-morning. However, Morning Glories had deep meaning for a dear friend of mine (BB), who often recalled a poem she wrote about them in Catholic Elementary School, claiming the nuns wrote the last line - a punchline -which can be read (in her handwriting) below:




The Morning Glory vine's short life caused me to replace it with Clematis lanuginosa ('Canidia') which I  bought at USQ - The Union Square Greenmarket in New York City, but I have included a link to detailed information about this plant in this post. This vine trailed happily up the pole, and because it is a perennial, I enjoyed the flowers for years and even rendered a photograph that I took of it into a petite wrap-around greeting card as seen below:

This Clematis also provided inspiration for the design of  general all occasion large wrap-around cards as well as wedding invitations, and program covers for special events. A sample is posted below:

These will be the last of the Clematis lanuginosa themed works, as this plant was attacked by web-worms whose unwelcome presence was discussed in a previous post. Fortunately, I was able to replace it with another Union Square Greenmarket find, the H.F. Young Clematis. A link is posted here to provide information on this plant but I do not know the grower who posted that link. I do know that I am looking forward to seeing the H.F. Young Clematis flowers if their beautiful buds (seen in the photograph below) are any indication of how gorgeous the flower will be.


Patricia Youngquist uses words and images to tell stories about her passions. Based in New York, she currently is authoring a series of nature books on birds of the city. Now in Apple’s iBooks store @ https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/words-in-our-beak/id1010889086?mt=11

What I said at the top of the post bears repeating, "Every flower bud has the potential of developing into something beautiful."


FALL 2018 ADDENDUM: 

I no longer actively produce event program covers, invitations and the types of greeting cards described here or on my website but arrangements might be able to be made under certain circumstances. My focus is on the Words In Our Beak book series, pictured below...

MY BOOK SERIES


...whose stories are told from the point of view of Cam, a female cardinal, whose photo is on the cover of each book. Words In Our Beak’s goal is to open readers to a simple understanding of the winged world and their environment. Set in my rooftop urban garden in New York City. Words In Our Beak is directed to children and adults who are curious about birds, and want to learn about them from a unique perspective. The books include hundreds of images of flora and fauna, links to movies, as well as to informative narratives that have been created by the author.

Please click here to go to my blog post that provides details as to where you can get these books.

Additionally,  I have rendered some images from these books into other formats and they are available via Fine Art America (FAA). Some of my other photographs (Black & White Collection, Kaleidoscopic Images and the famous Mandarin duck who visited NYC) can also be found on my FAA pages.

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