Garden Plan

Craig Irving started Sunnymeade Cottage Garden in 1986. In 2017 Sunnymeade won the Melbourne Cup Tour and VRC Australian Garden competition. The garden is laid out along the lines of interconnecting rooms. An Incan wall garden and a circular lawn are enclosed by towering hornbeam hedges from Europe. A Persian garden invites you into the tiled pavilion.

Further along, is the Yellow Garden boasting an iron arbour with wisteria. A rose garden with old-fashioned roses with a Victorian-era gazebo to sit in. Additionally, there is a medieval garden, a walled garden with a moon gate, a rose walk, a sunken garden, a fruit garden and an Egyptian garden.

Unhelpful weather gods

The day before our visit was in the high 30s, and we had everything crossed that our day wouldn’t be so hot. Unfortunately, the weather gods granted our wishes but went a little overboard with the cool change, giving us bland white skies and no sun. We even had a quick rain shower as we walked around (taking refuge in the gazebo).

Topiary Trees

I love Topiary, and Craig has undoubtedly mastered the skill. His immaculate hedges and spiral trees were a delight. However, while I thoroughly enjoyed our visit, I wished we had sunshine and blue skies. Maybe, fingers crossed, it will be open again in spring.

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The butterfly is a flying flower, the flower a tethered butterfly

Ponce Denis Écouchard Le Brun

Description

Like moths, the butterfly’s wings, bodies, and legs are covered with dust-like scales that come off when handled. However, unlike moths, who are active at night, butterflies are active during the day. They are also more brightly coloured and patterned than moths and have distinctive club-tipped s antennae. In addition, they hold their wings vertically over the back when at rest, while moths rest with flat wings.

The butterflies’ taste receptors are on their feet, so they taste the surface each time they land. Their diet is exclusively liquid as they don’t have the necessary apparatus for chewing. Instead, the butterfly uses its long proboscis like a straw to suck up nectar.

Their life cycle has four stages: egg, larvae (caterpillar), pupa (chrysalis) and adult (imago). Most butterflies and caterpillars feed on plants, and even then, only specific parts of specific types of plants.

Common egg fly butterfly

The most common butterfly in Australia is the Common Eggfly. The males have purple iridescent wings with white ‘egg’ spots. The female is brownish-black with white markings on the wing edges. The males are territorial and will physically battle other males over their territory. Fighting butterflies? Mind blown. They love human sweat and will land on you and drink it for the salt content lacking in flowers. A bacterial infection decimated the male population in 2001, killing 99% of the males. However, over time, they developed an immunity to the disease, and by 2007, the population had recovered to 40%

Cairns Birdwing

The biggest butterfly in Australia is the Cairns Birdwing. They are endemic to pockets of north-eastern coastal Queensland. With a wingspan that can reach 20cm (in the females, which are larger than the males), they are the largest butterfly species native to Australia and among the largest butterflies on Earth.

Photographing butterflies

The best time to photograph butterflies is spring and summer; especially in the early morning and late evening. This is because they will be cooler, slower and more sluggish.  A tripod will help, as will focusing with live view.  Focus on the butterfly head and eyes.  Go for a low F stop to make the butterfly pop out against a silky smooth bokeh background. 

Just as with flowers, the wind is our enemy here.  Even the slightest breeze will cause problems.  Look at the forecast before heading out – wind at less than 10kph is ideal.

I prefer a macro when shooting butterflies and an ISO of 100-640, depending on the light (but I try to keep it under 200).  I set my F stop to F5.6 with a shutter speed of 1/180th second if static on a flower and 1/500 if they are moving the wings.  .  The best way is to find a flower or shrub they are hovering around and wait for them to land.  They won’t be wary of you if you aren’t moving around.

In post-processing, you can crop your image to get even closer.  If you have to crop heavily, you can upsize the image larger again with no loss of quality by using Topaz Gigapixel (they have a free trial too).

Fun Facts

• A flock of butterflies is called a Kaleidoscope.
• There are 15,000 to 20,000 butterfly species in the world
• The average lifespan of an adult butterfly is three to four weeks (though the North American Monarch can last two to eight months). However, the Mayfly only lives 24 hours.
• Butterflies see a range of ultraviolet colours invisible to the human eye.

A great place to practice your butterfly photograph is at a Butterfly house. In Melbourne, the Melbourne Zoo Butterfly House is my go-to. If you are travelling, the Australian Butterfly Sanctuary in Kuranda, Cairns, Qld, is a fabulous place to visit.

The post Butterflies Are Flying Flowers appeared first on Bevlea Ross Photography.

Gear to Use

While you can use a phone camera – your best shots will come using a DSLR or Mirrorless camera. A lens such as the 12-24mm or 24-70mm range will work for all your shots if you photograph the sunflowers themselves. If you wish to shoot portraits against the fields, then go for a focal range of 35mm-85mm. If you want to shoot close-ups of the sunflowers, then a macro works best. But unless you have rock-steady hands (I don’t), put the camera on a tripod when using the macro.

Camera Settings

Firstly – shoot in Aperture Priority mode. If you are shooting portraits and want the narrow depth of field with background bokeh, then set your F stop at F/1.8 to F/2.8. For landscape shots, use F/16 to get as much in focus and sharp as possible. Keep your ISO as low as possible, ideally at ISO 100 or 200.

Shooting a model

If you are photographing people in the field, colour coordination becomes important. Ask your subject to wear white or blue clothing. They will need to avoid yellows and greens, or they will vanish into the field.

Focus Stacking

This isn’t completely necessary – and if you do, then use the tripod again. But if what is nearest to you is out of focus and the rest in focus, focus stacking will help if you want the entire scene in focus.

Best conditions for sunflower fields

Ideally, the best time is overcast days with no harsh shadows. However, that means you miss the beautiful blue skies (unless you sky swap with Luminar). Shooting at golden hour produces the best light – but most fields don’t open to visitors that early or late. To avoid the harsh shadows on a sunny day, try to time your shots to avoid the midday to 3 pm window.

Details

Don’t forget the back of the sunflower or the buds that haven’t bloomed yet. They are still interesting subjects.

Perspective

Get down low or go higher. Using a wide angle, try laying on the ground and shooting up through the flowers. Bring a step ladder along and get above the flowers.

Sunflower fields

Sunflower fields are not as plentiful as canola fields. And those that allow access are even fewer. The largest sunflower field in Victoria that allows visitors is Pick Your Own Sunflowers at Navigators Road, Dunnstown near Ballarat. Entry is $5 per person.

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History

Italian speaking swiss migrants Aquilino and Maria Tinetti founded the land as a dairy farm on 5-6 acres in the 1850s. Aquilino Tinetti was born at Biasca in 1856 and arrived in Australia in 1860. He married Maria Caprioli in 1870 after a return visit to Ticino.  His family, which eventually numbered thirteen children, settled at Shepherd’s Flat in a stone house surrounded by farmlands. Purchased in the 1980s the new owners authentically restored the run-down buildings to their former glory. It then became a lavender farm.

Lavendula Plant

Lavandula is the botanical name for lavender.  It derives its name from the Latin’ lavara’ meaning “to wash”.  The Romans used lavender to scent their baths, beds, clothes and hair.  While most are light purple or purplish-blue shades, some varieties have white, pink, blue, or darker purple blooms.  There are 47 known species of flowering plants in the mint family, of which lavender is one. Lavender is indigenous to the mountainous area of western Europe and part of the Mediterranean.  However, early travellers spread the plant rapidly worldwide. Consequently, by the end of the 16^th century, it was a much-loved plant in English gardens.

Uses In Cosmetics and Medicine

Lavender has many uses.  Flavoured vinegar to potpourri, candles, soaps and cleaning supplies are the common uses of lavender. Its soothing, relaxing properties ensured its use for centuries in traditional medicine, such as Insomnia, headaches, toothaches, sore joints and digestive problems.  It is also used as a mild sedative and an aid to relieve neuralgia pain when used in a bath.  Lavender sprays are also reputed to discourage mosquitos.

Lotions, lip balms, and bath salts employ lavender in their potions.  Aromatherapy uses Essential oil of lavender. Hospitals used it as a disinfectant during WW I, antiseptic and anti-inflammatory. It said to soothe headaches and motion sickness when applied to the temples. 

Lavender in Food

The most commonly used species for cooking is English Lavender.  It is aromatic and has a sweet fragrance with lemon or citrus notes.  For this reason, pasta, salads, dressings, and desserts use lavender as a spice. Herbal tea is made by blending the Buds and greens with black, green tea.

Magic & Superstition

Lavender was also burned in sick rooms and strewn on the floors of castles.  Placing lavender in your linen closet was said to deter moths.  In Ireland, brides wore lavender garters to safeguard them from witchcraft. Lavender was placed under the beds of newlyweds in the hope that it would ensure passion.

Considered an aphrodisiac, it was used in love spells and rituals for centuries. For example, carrying a sachet or amulet containing lavender to attract spirits.  Furthermore, dried lavender stalks burn similar to incense sticks used in spells. 

 Visit Lavendula Swiss Italian Farm

Aromatherapy products, created in the farm still room, are available for sale. In addition, La Trattoria Bar & Eatery provides delicious food from wood-fired pizzas lavender scones with whipped cream and strawberry jam. 

Like to bake your own? Download the recipe for lavender scones HERE. Gluten-free and vegan are also catered for. Entry is $5 for adults and $1 for school-age children.

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Bees are found on every continent except Antarctica and every habitat with insect-pollinated flowering plants.  While bees feed on nectar and pollen, the nectar is primarily an energy source for bees.  Pollen is taken back to the hive and used for their larvae.

Characteristics

All bees have large, round, compound eyes covering much of their head.  Between these large eyes are three smaller eyes that provide information on light intensity.  Their antennae have 13 segments in males and 12 in females with an elbow joint part way along.  The bees mouth is adapted for both sucking and chewing.

Their body has three segments, with a pair of robust legs in each segment. The membranous wings are on the two back segments.  Bees have four wings that hook together, forming one large pair when flying. When not in flight, the wings unhook back into two wings on each side.  The front legs are used to clean their antennae, while the back legs contain pollen baskets.

Bee Populations

The Australian honey bee population decreases each year due to climate change, pesticides and disease. Over 100 thousand commercial beehives were lost in Australia in the ten years between 2006 and 2016. The Green Carpenter Bee is listed as endangered by the South Australian State Government. An estimated 95% of its last remaining habitat of the Green Carpenter Bee on Kangaroo Island was lost in the recent bushfires. The Green Carpenter Bee is extinct in Victoria.

Studies have found at least nine species of Australian bees meet the criteria for the IUCN Red List for vulnerable, and two meet the category for endangered. Most bees on the list lost between 55 to 59% of their habitat in the recent bushfires. Bee pollination is vital, both economically and commercially. 90% of plants and 75% of crops depend on pollination. Crops such as almonds are 100% reliant on bees for pollination.

Honey Bee Life Cycle

The life cycle of a honey bee starts as an egg, then development through several moults, followed by the pupae stage.  Finally, the bee undergoes complete metamorphosis during the pupae stage before emerging as a winged adult.  There are three castes of bees, queens, drones and workers. 

– Queens

Each colony contains typically a single queen who lays around 2,000 eggs per day at a rate of one per minute, day and night.  The average lifespan is two to four years though some live as long as eight years.  As the queen’s age, their productivity declines. So the hive replaces her whereby the nurse bees feed royal jelly to 10-20 young larvae to create a new queen.  If one new queen emerges first, she stings her unhatched rivals, killing them in their cells. However, if more than one new queen emerges simultaneously, they take flight, fight with the other queens to the death, and then mate in the air with the male bees (drones). Sometimes the hive kills the old queen when the new queen is ready to take over. At other times they allow her to live and die naturally.  

– Worker bees

Sterile females are the worker bees. Therefore, their lifespan depends on when they are born.  Spring/summer is the height of hive activity, and bees born at this time live five to six weeks.  In contrast, bees born in autumn/winter while the hive is inactive may live for four to six months. The worker bees make the honeycomb nests from wax secreted from their abdominal glands and produce honey.  When the worker bee returns to the hive, the collected nectar is passed to the bees inside the hive.  They then pass it mouth to mouth until the moisture content is reduced from 70% to 20%.  This process changes the nectar into honey.  Finally, the honey is placed into cells and capped with beeswax for the next lot of baby bees. Next, they mix pollen with the honey to create “bee bread”.  This is then fed to the larvae.

– Drones

Male bees are called drones.  They have no stinger and no proboscis for collecting nectar.  Their sole purpose is to wait for a new queen to emerge and mate with her.  While there are several hundred drones in the hive over spring and summer, they are expelled in winter when the hive goes into survival mode.

Stingers

The stingers are actually a modified organ used to lay and position eggs. Accordingly, only female members of the hive can use their stinger. A queens stinger is smooth and can be used many times. A worker bees stinger is barbed; thus, when they sting their victim, it is becomes lodged in the skin. When the worker bee flies away, the stinger stays behind, leaving a pumping venom sac. Within minutes, the worker bee will die from a massive abdominal rupture received when the stinger was torn from their abdomen. Bees only sting in defence of the hive or when roughly handled.

Hive Behaviour

While pivotal to the hive’s health, the queen bee is its mother, not its ruler. On average, a hive contains 40,000 bees.  Bees do not hibernate. However, during winter, after expelling all the male bees from the hive, the female bees remain in the hive and live on the stored honey and pollen. clustering into a ball to conserve warmth. During the winter period, they feed the larvae, and, by spring, the hive is swarming with new workers and drones. 

Reproduction

Male bees (drones)  are almost entirely focused on reproduction.  They leave the hive searching for virgin queens, but only a small percentage succeed in mating.  The act of procreation results in catastrophic injuries to the abdomen of the male bee, leading to almost immediate death.  Drones that do not mate have a life expectancy of 90 days.

Commercial bee hives

The first recorded European honey bees arrived in Australia in 1822 aboard the Isabella. Since that time, honey bees have become firmly established. There are over 30,000 registered beekeepers in Australia, managing over 668,000 hives. Australia is one of the top ten honey producing countries in the world.

Honey

There are more floral sources for making honey in Australia than any other country.  Consequently, Australia has the broadest range of honey tastes and colours.   

• Bluegum – light amber in colour, choice forest honey from the south.
• Karri – amber honey from the forests of Western Australia.
• Leatherwood –unique honey from the west coast of Tasmania, quick to candy and extra light in colour.
• Lucerne – mild-tasting honey.
• Yellow box – pale and sweet honey from New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland.
• Stringybark – strong flavoured, medium amber honey from the Great Dividing Range.
• Ti-tree is very strong flavoured honey used mainly in manufacturing, from the north and south.
• White clover – extra white honey that candies smoothly.
• Manuka  – exclusively from New Zealand, contains methylglyoxal, which is portenitally an antibacterial, antiviral, anti inflammatory, and antioxidant.  It has been used to treat inflammatory skin conditions and heal wounds. However, people with diabetes, an allergy to bees or under the age should not eat manuka.

Eight Fun Facts

1. The bees wings beat 11,400 times a minute
2. Only female bees can sting
3. Honey bees communicate through a series of dance moves.  This is called a ‘waggle dance.’
4. It takes 300 bees around three weeks to make 450g of honey.
5. The honey bee is the only insect that produces food fit for human consumption
6. The antioxidant in honey improves brain function
7. A bee has five eyes
8. The inside of a hive is 32.5°C

Recipe

Try the Mocha Honey Cheesecake from the Australian Honey Bee council.

Many thanks to Jason from Hi Ho Honey in Trawool, Vic., for allowing us to photograph him opening the hives.

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Gathering Your Subjects

A show-worthy garden is not required to photograph flowers. Look to your own or your neighbour’s garden. Pop into your local nursery and photograph their blooms (if you aren’t in lockdown). Take the camera on your walk and photograph the blossoms or wattle. Keep a pr of scissors in your pocket, and if you want to take a cutting home, you can snip a piece off from the blossom or wattle trees on the nature strips or parks as you go by. If you have no garden, a bunch of mixed flowers from the supermarket is a great place to start. Look for daises, lilies, daffodils, Gerbera, and sweet williams.

Outdoors

Consider wind when deciding what, when and where to photograph. A tripod is highly recommended using a macro lens, but this won’t help if it’s breezy and the flowers move like crazy. If your flowers won’t hold still – cut them and take them to a sheltered spot or indoors. Early morning or late afternoon will give you the best light and avoid the harsh shadows of the middle of the day when it’s sunny. Indoors you have more control over lighting.

Light

Natural light or flash? I prefer non-flash – so that the light is softer, and I prefer to compensate with a longer shutter speed on a tripod. If you use a flash (or a torch), direct the light to the background, not the flower, to reduce your shadows on the flower. Indoors, filtered side light from a southwest-facing window works a treat in either early morning or late afternoon. Lacey curtains will create exciting patterns while sheers will diffuse the light. A small reflector allows you to bounce light back to the darkest side. Don’t have one? An economical alternative is to cover a piece of cardboard with aluminium foil.

Composition

Fill the frame? Patterns, textures? Also, consider the plane of focus. For example, if you are photographing down into a flower with a deep centre, such as a lily or a rose, the stamens will focus while the side walls are out of focus.

Depth of Field

Do you want all the flowers in focus or just a part of it? If you use a macro, you will only get a narrow slice in focus regardless of your aperture; if you want more of the flowers in focus when shooting with a macro, consider focus stacking. With a zoom lens, more or all of the flowers will be in focus if using an F-stop or F7 or more. The silkiness of the background bokeh will depend on the lens utilised – and how far away from the flower the background is.

Inside or out?

With spring being windy – and lockdown limiting movement options – this is my preferred go-to at the moment. For this post, I picked up a bunch of flowers from the supermarket, gathered my tools and set them up near a window. I used a macro and my walkaround lens for the shots, and focus stacked the macro shots. With the camera on a tripod, I wasn’t concerned about shutter speed – I set the ISO to 200, the F stop to between 5.0 and 7 depending on which lens was on the camera, and I just adjusted the shutter until the exposure was correct.

Handy Tools To Have for indoor shoots.

• Printed backgrounds – I made mine in photoshop and blurred them to give me a silky DOF, but you can also use wrapping paper, placemats etc. You can also place flowers behind your main subject as a background. To start you off with printed backgrounds, there are four free ones to download at the end of this post. The ones I used were printed on A4 180gsm matt photo paper – there is no need for a large sheet when photographing a single flower.
• Bulldog clips to hold your backgrounds
• Pegs and Memo holders to hold a single flower or backdrop. slide a piece cut from a drinking straw or heat tube over the teeth, so they don’t crush the flower stem
• a specimen holder – I made my own with a mini tripod, alligator clip, and heat shrink plastic tube (thanx for the tip Stewart Wood)
• a glass (no water) to hold a single flower
• Vase or water to hold your flowers and keep them from wilting while working

Setup and my Final Shots

Each split screen below shows the setup – and the finished shot. There is no hard and fast rule I follow… most of the time, the backgrounds do stand up ok.. sometimes, I have to handhold. I haven’t glued them to more robust cardboard as the photo paper is double-sided, so I printed the background on each side… it’s not a huge problem to get them to stand up. I think a small easel might do the trick for the odd one that won’t play nice 😉

Setup One

This was the most straightforward setup of all. First, place your bloom in a glass to support it upright (no water needed). Next, choose your background, put it behind the image, and shoot. Support your printed background with a couple of large bulldog clips as stands; if using wrapping paper, try blue tac to attach it to the wall behind your flower. Then zoom in on the part of the flower you want to shoot… or use the macro.

Setup Two

For this shot, I held the Gerbera upright using two clothes pegs. My greenery behind was held with memo and bulldog clips, and my little specimen stand and another bulldog clip held the backdrop in place.

Setup Three

Bit of a lazy effort with setup Three. I used the Gerbera again – this time in the glass with the pegs holding it straight up in the middle of the glass. This background didn’t want to stand up, so I handheld it and took the shot.

Setup Four

I chose another Gerbera with setup number four and again situated it in the glass, held in place with pegs. However, I had to raise the glass a bit for this one with a book to get the part of the background I wanted in the right place. So again, I lowered the tripod, and shot with the macro, shot level with and side onto the flower.

I hope you enjoyed the Techniques for Flower Photography – at the bottom of the post are your free backgrounds.

Click the button below to download your four free backgrounds. It’s a zip file, so you will need WinRar or Winzip to unzip it. Both programs are free to download

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The logistics of the shoot – the size of the bathroom, size of bath, fresh or fake flowers, how much milk, what to wear – may take a bit longer to work out or deal with, but at the end of the day – none are unsurmountable.. including tiny bathrooms.

Costume and Head Gear

The subject of our milk bath maternity shoot shoot ‘Jess’ was around 33 weeks in the shots. She provided her own costume and headgear and came along with a bag of roses from her garden.

Tips for the shoot

We part filled the tub with warm water and added 6 litres of full cream milk the scattered the rose petals and a couple of flowers before our Mumma climbed in. It helps to have a second shooter there to stir the petals back to where you want them while shooting.

The recommendations are for around four litres of milk, but we wanted a nice, creamy milky bath. For us, six litres of milk was perfect. When choosing real vs fake flowers – bear in mind fake ones tend to sink while real ones float. If using fake, try spraying them on the bottom with Scotchguard first and they will stay afloat a bit longer.

The bathroom was reasonably bright with daylight coming in the long window and no extra lighting was required

It was definitely a fun shoot – and not hard to do. If you have ever considered doing one – go for it!

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Go ahead and Google ‘frozen flower photography’, and you will get lots of tutorials on how to do it. While the basics, such as building your ice up slowly, are in all of them, they also differ on many finer points. I tried several methods. Most were pretty much unsuccessful. (that’s a kind way of saying total failures).

Through trial and error, this is what worked for me.

Note: Freezing your block completely can take up to 24 hrs or more, depending on the size of your container. Freeze it the day before you want to photograph it.

Supplies

For your frozen flower photography, you will need, apart from a freezer, camera and tripod, the following:

• Flowers – something not too big. Rosebuds work well, as do daisies, cosmos and gerberas. Not Lillies; they are too big. The bigger the flower, the bigger the container, the more water, the longer the freezing takes… etc., etc.
• A container – it needs to be at least twice as deep as your chosen flower. A smoother base is better than a highly patterned one, too. However, small ridges or brand stamps don’t matter. The container must also be freezer-safe.
• Distilled water – yes, you can use tap water or boiled water. (see the bit about failures). Tap water will be cloudy. I got the best results with distilled water. The distilled water was nice and ‘almost’ clear. Apart from bubbles. More on that later. Demineralised water also works, though distilled is cheaper.

Method

You need to fully encase your flowers in a block of ice. Just putting them in the container and filling them with water won’t work. Flowers contain oxygen, and they will float to the surface and bob around like apples in a barrel. We need to anchor the flowers to the ice and build it up slowly with the ice setting between layers.

• Add a couple of centimetres of water to your container and freeze solid.
• When your water is frozen, remove it from the freezer and arrange your flowers on the ice to your liking. If you are using rosebuds, they will look the same on top and bottom so that you can shoot from both sides. If using daisies, for example, place them face down and arrange them to your liking.
• Slowly add a little bit more water.. about a cm or so. Too much, and you will melt the layer below, and they will float. Back to square one. Trust me. I am not guessing here. The second they start floating, STOP. Maybe soak a little bit of water back out. Pop it back in the freezer for another couple of hours. Ignore the strange looks the family is giving you
• Remove your container from the freezer and check if it’s frozen. If you still have water sloshing around below the surface, return to the freezer and leave for another hour or so. If it’s frozen solid, add just enough water to completely cover the flowers—about 1 to 1.5cm above them. Too much, and you could melt the layer below again or find it hard to shoot through the ice to photograph the flowers. Pop it back in the freezer again
• Recheck it a couple of hours later.. or the next morning. When it’s frozen solid, remove it and place it on a draining board upside down for around ten minutes. It should then slide out of the container easily.
• Check the uppermost side when it comes out. This is the side you are shooting. If you have marks from the bottom of the container, wipe them over gently with a warm cloth or your hand to even them out.

Photographing your flowers

You have a couple of options here. You can place it upright, against a window with natural light coming through, to light the flowers. Another option is on a white backdrop or board and light it from the sides and back with a torch.

I added a paper towel folded into four under the block to stop it from sliding around on the perspex. It will get wet, but that doesn’t matter. The point is to stop the block from sliding off the perspex; it can’t be seen if your background is white. If you put it against a window inside, place a towel below it to avoid a puddle.

I used a standard lens such as a 24-70 for some shots and the macro for others. I also shot brighter than the camera was suggesting by lowering my shutter speed (it was on a tripod, so no problem). As the block started melting, the failed tap water ones looked good with a macro. Little air bubbles will form in your creation from the oxygen trapped in the flowers – these look great captured with a macro.

You have a couple of hours to play with your block and will get different shots as the block continues to melt. It is fun but time-consuming getting it to the frozen stage. But then again, what else do we all have now but time on our hands.

Update: I have now done a tutorial with frozen autumn leaves.

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The Gardens

After parking the car, we wandered into the entrance, paid our fee, received our free map. We decided to sit and have lunch first as it was near lunchtime. There is a large seating area overlooking the lake for those dining at the cafe. Also dotted around the lake are many other areas offering great seating with tables undercover for those who prefer to bring a picnic lunch. Next time we visit we will definitely bring a picnic. It took two trips to the counter to get our lunch (we got the order wrong the first time, left stuff off the second time, and if we returned a burnt hamburger bun, it would have made three trips).

The Blue Lotus water garden, however, is delightful. It’s well laid out and has loads to photograph. Acres of beautifully landscaped gardens with a ‘tropical’ theme, enormous waterlilies bloom everywhere in a riot of colour among lakes, lagoons and ponds.

Pack the sunscreen

Despite the many planted trees, apart from the picnic areas and front cafe area, there is no shade on the pathways, so it’s nice of them to provide umbrellas for you to walk around with. Keep an eye out for them near the cafe, if it’s a sunny day you will need them. Do bring a hat, sunscreen, and insect repellent.

About half way around you’ll come to a couple of greenhouses, here, you’ll find the more exotic water lilies and massive lily pads from the amazon.

If you have little ones with you there is a Faerie Garden – on certain days the ‘Faerie Queen’ is in residence and offering face painting (for a fee).

Location

Blue Lotus Water Gardens 2628 Warburton Hwy, Yarra Junction

Open seven days a week, from 10 am to 5 pm – December to April.

Entry: $18 adults, $16 conc. or seniors. Kids 0-15yrs free

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The first mania occurred way back in 1500’s in Turkey – which was the time of the Ottoman Empire and of Sultan Suleiman I (1494-1566). Tulips became highly cultivated blooms, developed for the pleasure of the Sultan and his entourage. During the Turkish reign of Ahmed III (1703-30) it is believed that the Tulip reigned supreme as a symbol of wealth and prestige and the period later became known as ‘Age of the Tulips’.

http://Tessekaars tulip historyhttp://Tessekaars tulip history

The Selfie Brigade

When I visited a couple of years ago, there were people everywhere wandering in among the tulips, up and down the aisles, sitting among them for selfies. Which made it hard to get a shot of them and led to the blooms being crushed and trampled. 

It was great to see a low rope fence this year, which everyone respected the day I was there, preventing this. But, of course, it doesn’t affect the ability to photograph them at all. Being low and a single rope, it’s easy to hold the camera on the other side of the rope and shoot. But it does keep the pesky selfie brigade out.

Alice In Wonderland

We had made a last-minute decision the day before to head to Tessellaars when we found out they had an Alice in Wonderland theme that week, and the next day was the last.  Unfortunately, the character I wanted to get (the mad hatter) wasn’t there that day.  Very annoying. First world problem.

Also blooming were several varieties of daffodils, from the traditional bright yellow to big double blooms.

If you are into flowers, the festival is well worth a visit.  You can buy tickets at the gate, but enter the code LOVE for 20% off your entry if purchasing online beforehand.

When and Where

357 Monbulk Rd, Silvan VIC 3795

Open 10am – 5pm from Sept 15 to Oct 14 2019

Adults $28pp, Concession $24pp Children 16 and under are free of charge.  National carers card accepted.

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