Nasty Habits!

A picture (of the public garden in Plainfield, WI) taken using the pano setting on my phone

The Digital Age has chained some of us to our technology. We are connected to our devices. I am not sure that makes us more or less connected to everyone around us. My mother hates Siri, computers, and the internet... until it solves some small dilemma for her.

My father thinks I have become a Wizard with the knowledge of the universe at my fingertips. HAL, in the form of Siri is at my command. I can find anyone or anything in the universe. My brother, nearly a generation younger than me, disdains this connectiveness because we as a people don't have to "know" anything. We can find "it" out using our phones.



Although my son assumes I am a dinosaur of some yet undiscovered type, I embrace technology and am always messing around to discover what it can do. When some app, though, does something perfectly satisfactorily for me, I don't care if it is the latest thing or five years old-- and I hate it when it is changed.  (It used to be our music that divided the generations; music, not so much anymore.)

This pano pic (of the public garden in Plainfield, WI) has some obvious distortions.

Taking picture of wide angle views in a garden has always been problematic. I think that is why so many of use take a macro picture of a single flower or plant rather than a shot of a large section of our gardens when posting to our blogs. The view descends into a large sea of green.

I am still working on perfecting this pano technique before I share large swaths of my garden or a panorama of the Long Border. I plant the long border so sections of it come in and out of bloom during the seasons, not to be seen all in one wide swipe. I'm not sure "pano" can be a good thing for my yard.

Until my yard lives up to the technology, it is old school pictures.

Blooming in the garden:

Queen of the prairie reached 7' tall this year!  Usually it is 3' to 4' tall in my garden.

The local Prairie Nursery says 4' to 5'. I have to say both sites have the spread wrong. This plant is a ground eater with a spread of more than six feet. It is a darling plant, even with its world dominating ways. Until you grow it, you do not understand its charm.

Macro of filipendula

New acquisition, still sitting in the pot, 'hydrangea 'Bloomstruck'. Someday the macrophylla hydrangea that reblooms will be a reality in my zone 4 garden.  Is 'Bloomstruck' the one? The marketing on the internet would say yes, but until it blooms in my garden next year, the verdict is still unknown regardless of what Siri would say.