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wantonamara

Playing with my camera again

My Astrophytum ornatum bloomed AGAIN and I just had to get my camera out
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Do you see the Agave ovatifollia in the background?
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Comments (11)

  • dianashh
    10 years ago

    Absolutely beautiful :)

  • bob61
    10 years ago

    Your plants are always beautiful and this one is no exception. The black and white is framable. I have a ornatum That I'v had for years and it will not bloom. Can't figure it out. I'v read that they take the longest to come into blooming age but this is a puzzle. Maybe more sun and fertilizer.

  • wantonamara Z8 CenTex
    Original Author
    10 years ago

    Thank You. This shot screamed for the Black and white transformation. I don't do that usually. It is so easy these days with digital that it feels like cheating. I am an old Black and White photographer and lab printer back in the day so the ease just feels sinful. I guess I need to get over it.

    The first day of the bloom they are very Yellow and the second it goes more yellow silver. If it is more in the sun it gets hints of pale salmon in the silver. I have it more in the shade now with morning sun. It got new sun scars this year due to my inattention when we soured early to 108 and it was still out in the all day sun area while I was out driving around working.

    I have had two small ones bloom this year. I fertilized with More Bloom an alaskan product that is no Nitrogen . I use it once a week at 1/4 dilution. I think this large one has bloomed 4 or 5 times this summer.

  • bob61
    10 years ago

    I'll have to look for More Bloom. I'v just started this year with Miracle grow cactus food every two weeks but I think I'v been missing a few plants. I haven't dabbled in the black and white thing sense I was in the Navy and used the dark room aboard ship. It was always fun seeing the pictures appear on the paper.

  • lcadena
    10 years ago

    Simply beautiful!

  • wantonamara Z8 CenTex
    Original Author
    10 years ago

    I need to run out for more low nitrogen fertilizer today myself. I ran out last Sunday. Thanks for reminding me.

  • notolover
    10 years ago

    Lovely, lovely, lovely. Stunning in black and white as well as the color.

    Thanks for sharing!

    I didn't get many flowers from my Echinopsis hybrids until I started using a bloom fertilizer. It's the extra ooomph they need I guess.

  • kataclysm
    10 years ago

    Beautiful plants and wonderful pictures! It's like art squared!

  • hanzrobo
    10 years ago

    Mara, you point and click right up there with the best of 'em.

  • trip_kc
    10 years ago

    Perfect photographs of beautiful astros
    thanks for sharing

  • wantonamara Z8 CenTex
    Original Author
    10 years ago

    GEEE, Thanks guys and gals. Sometimes I think that I take pictures of the same plants over and over , year after year, so I run the danger of boring you. I do try to look at them in different ways.

    I have found that fertilizer has made a difference in performance. When I pot up next I am going to start puting in some bone meal into the gritty mix.

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