• travel

    Some More South-Africa

    I wrote about my trip to South Africa in October earlier. I posted most of my decent horizontal shots (I actually take a lot more vertical shots, they just don’t look as good on the blog), but a certain part got left out, what I could call “random roses” and a few other pics. I’m a member of the Finnish Rose Society and I am interested in roses, but not in the same way the most devoted enthusiast are, I really could not even be: I am more or less equally interested in so many other aspects of gardening as well and time would just run out. That said, I’m…

  • indoor,  winter

    I Could Have Taken One More Day of Cold

    As long as it would have meant the kind of beautiful weather we had until Friday. The mornings especially have been beautiful, but unfortunately I’ve had to go to work and then today it was overcast, but also a lot warmer. Warmer (-7°C …) is nice, but the morning mist with a lot of frost on the trees and the beautiful sunshine was really beautiful. It would have been nice to try to get shots like the ones in the first picture. They are both quite old and that kind of weather isn’t very common. On the other hand 4 out of my 6 cousins + one of my uncles…

  • travel

    Villa Borghese

    The Villa Borghese is not so much a villa as it is a giant and beautiful park in Rome.  There is of course an actual villa, which in France would be called a chateau and in several other places a palace. Most of the showy planting is around the building in question and behind a wrought iron fence. These pictures have mostly been taken by extending my arm and camera through the bars, setting it for auto focus and hoping for the best. Considering that, I am happy with the result.. It was the perfect time (around May 1st) for seeing the massive plantings of Iris germanica (I’m guessing) in…

  • travel

    Villa Landriana

    It so cold here that I am almost losing hope of ever seeing spring again, but until then, some browsing in my photo album might help. I  went on a garden tour to Italy last spring with my local garden society. The tour was organized very well by the Swedish company Rosebud Tours.   We visited quite a few nice places, but out of those Villa Landriana was a definite favorite of mine. Russel Page, the world famous garden designer has had some hand in this garden. The garden was divided into several rooms, which I don’t always like that much, but when the rooms are quite fantastic, I find myself not…