Winter tulipmania!

In the streets of The Hague, flower shops display color for bleak, windy and stormy days.

Calceolaria

Winter is a season that grants time to gardeners to digg into books, enciclpedias, catalogues, etc. to look for new inspiration, or just learned more about what one is interested in. In the case of garden or landscape photographers is a season of another kind of photography: one that challenges the weather and look for outstanding images of nature and another indoors, more introspective and reflective.  This weekend has been mostly about macro and colorfull subjects in photography.
Last week I visited a nursery (I will post this week about it) and ended up buying some bulbs and one little plant: a Calceolaria (below info from Wikipedia, and supporting Wednesday's blackout):

"This genus consists of about 388 species of shrubs, lianas and herbs, and the geographic range extends from Patagonia to central Mexico, with its distribution centre in Andean region. Calceolaria in Latin means shoemaker."

I cultivated one long time ago, and was amazed by the color, and the sculptural shape, I am still captivated by the beauty, though the plant is small in size is huge in photogenic and my macro lens loved it!

Winter in red

Winter is not always grey!

Tamus Communis

Cornus

Celastrus Orbiculatus

Tamus Communis

Hortus Botanicus Leiden

View of the Winter Garden from the Clusius Garden at the Hortus Botanicus Leiden.

Clerodendron thomsoniae

This post from enclos*ure about Clerodendron thomsoniae, reminded me a collection of studio images I took  more than year ago, but I never posted any, here are some of the more abstract ones.