The 21st Century Matriarch

I made a last macro photography foray around our yard in Maryland --- enjoying the fullness of spring. I started with the usual moss and lichen on the trees in front.

In the front flower beds, the nine-bark bush was in bloom and the pyracantha that I thought had died several years ago has come back from the roots/is blooming.

In the chaos garden, the irises are thriving along with Virginia creeper. Under the deck, there is a fiddlehead of a Christmas fern unfurling.

I decided to not move the dried flowers from daughter’s birth over 30 years ago. They are now in a hollow of the brush pile since I have already cleaned out the compost bin. They have more color in the macro views than I expected!

This time of year, the plants are going to seed. I walked around our yard finding a few:

A dandelion puff in the grass – not a many as in the warm days of late spring and early summer…once the dandelion crescendo they continue flowering and making seed puffs through the warm months until frost.

Many of the ferns have spores on the back of their leaves.

Coneflowers look almost threatening with the spikes of seeds….a drape of drying petals below.

We had a pyracantha at one corner of our house when we move here over 25 years ago – it died back but has now come up from the roots and has orange berries again this year – a pop of color beneath the huge bush growing above the re-emerging pyracantha.