Bainbridge In Bloom - 2011

[JohnB]

Friday, July 8th marks the first day of the Bainbridge In Bloom garden tour and is open to Patrons and Garden Enthusiasts. The main days are Saturday & Sunday and the expectation is that around 3000+ will visit the 6 gardens on the tour. Details can be found at www.gardentour.info

Kath and I are looking forward to the Garden Enthusiast day, Friday is much more peaceful way to visit the gardens, then we're going to the Evening dinner/reception/fund-raiser which is also a good way to re-connect with friends.

I'll post some pictures of the gardens we visit.

[Eric Hardy]

I will look forward to seeing your pics, John.

[ideasguy]

Thanks for keeping us informed on whats happening in WA, John!
I'd love to take that trip, but thanks to your offer to post photos, we can savour the event.
Have a nice weekend.

[JohnB]

We had a lovely day on Friday, the weather turned out great - low 70's and sunny. I've posted pictures of the garden into my Smugmug gallery - http://johnandkathb.smugmug.com/Gardening/Bainbridge-In-Bloom-2011/17987983_Q6TS2J

You can view a slide show by following this link: http://johnandkathb.smugmug.com/photos/swfpopup.mg?AlbumID=17987983&AlbumKey=Q6TS2J

I use Smugmug as it stores my photo's in their original resolution and so acts as a nice safety net in case I have any PC problems.

[ideasguy]

Great set of photos John, of some beautiful gardens and locations.
The house by the edge of the lake is like paradise, and it has an excellent choice of flowers - I approve

I look at those gardens and say - do you not have weeds on Bainbridge? Are the gardens tended by the owners or do they have help from professional gardeners?

[JohnB]

The gardens were nice and pretty much weed free -- which having been a garden host in 2008 is quite stressfull and a lot of work -- weeds grow very well here!

Most of the gardens are maintained by their owners - Garden 6 - which is a shared garden at the Vineyard condominiums does have a professional crew and apparently some of the home owners are pretty avid gardeners too.

The waterfront properties all face onto Puget Sound, Garden 1 faced East and Seattle is in the distance across the Sound. Garden 4 is at the north end of the Island.

[Eric Hardy]

I enjoyed your slide show very much, John. They are excellent photos. My broadband is rather slow so they changed rather slowly but it enabled me to study the pictures more carefully. As George says, they all look remarkably weed free, unlike our garden  . There were some lovely views over the water from some properties. How far is this from Vancouver? One of our grandsons lives there.
As someone that is keen on photography could you tell me what camera you use?

[JohnB]

Hi Eric,
Bainbridge Island is pretty much due West of Seattle, just across Puget Sound. We're about 140 miles south of Vancouver, BC and the climates are pretty similar.

The camera is a Canon EOS Rebel T2i with a Sigma 18-200mm 1:3.5-6.3 lens, I got it just before last Christmas and I'm still experimenting a lot to get things right. I probably do need to get another lens for landscape and macro shots - that will give me a greater depth of field for the landscape particularly.

You can actually control the slide show speed - if you look in the upper left corner when the thumbnails are displayed - there's a slow-med-fast option.  Which might give you even more time -- hovering over a picture with your mouse also pauses the show I think.

[Eric Hardy]

Hi John,

I thought the gardens looked pretty lush. You must have a lovely climate. Thanks for the slide show speed tip. I hadn't noticed that. I have tried it again on fast and the pictures are changing quite quickly.

 My family are deeply into Nikon cameras so I always like to find another Canon enthusiast. I don't know why Canon chose to have different names for their cameras on opposite sides of the Atlantic. We call yours the 550D. I have the 450D and a bigger and heavier one the 40D. I don't know what you call these. I have read some good reports of your Sigma lens. There is a section in the forum devoted to photography and equipment. You might feel like adding a piece. Here is my little contribution http://www.flowergenie.co.uk/ideas/forum/index.php/topic,985.0.html

[JohnB]

Thanks for the pointer to the photography section of the forum - I'd not looked there, but will now! It can be confusing how the manufacturers refer to their products differently around the world, I agree - and thanks for the info about good reports on the lens.