I must have flowers, always, and always.
― Claude Monet
This week I hope will bring some colourful joy to us all – we will have more Favourite Flowers than ever! And, should it not be flower season where you are, you are welcome to share other beautiful or interesting plants that you love. If there is a story to go with them, we’d love you to share it with us.
My first choice, in the header, must be a Cattleya Iwanagaara Appleblossom – this was my favourite for many years, but sadly it died last year. Then…tough choices for me as I love many flowers! I will not complain if you too find it difficult…
I love the white Magnolia in my garden. Maybe the reason for loving these flowers has to do with its extreme fragility in our climate. The first Spring flowers, the anemonies, can take several days of frost and bad weather, but most years we lose the magnolias after a day or two – because of the cold.
Our greatest favourites in Sweden must be the shy blue anemonies. We even poke around last year’s leaves in order to find the first blue buds… And, it’s a yearly competition to show the first photo on facebook or instagram…
Sweden and the other nordic countries are rather cold places, so when Spring arrives with the light and warmer temperatures – our first flowers are always the most loved ones.
While the blue anemonies grow rather scarcely and are more of solitaires – the white wood anemonies fill the whole forest with their little faces turned towards the sun – just like we do. They bring out people of all ages to walk in the forest and admire the magic.
As you probably know, wild flowers and grasses have a special place in my heart. In my garden I have many wild summer flowers, and not only for the insects – they are for me too. I love their delicateness, often in contrast to the bigger and sturdier cultivated flowers.
Among cultivated flowers, Miss Willmott’s Ghost is a favourite of late, I just love the silvery whiteness and its sharp needles – and the story of course. How Miss Willmott loved this plant so much that she secretely spread it everywhere in people’s gardens…
The colour of plumbago is heavenly. Ever since I saw the first one, in my teens, in a little village somewhere in the Mediterranian, I was caught. Finally I can have this beauty at home, as my glasshouse makes it possible for it to survive winter temperatures.
And then, one of the strangest flowers…
Callistemon – or bottlebrush. It was love at first sight, 1986 in Nepal. I brought home a twig and made it live, but coming back from one of our travels I found it had died. I have bought several ones over the years, just to see them die during winter, but now they survive happily in the glass house.
Asters are the last ones to flower before winter, and that is a good reason to love them, because they have to endure cold and rain, frost and sometimes snow. Sorry to say, they don’t look this brilliant in 2022. We have had too much rain and too little sun this autumn.
I guess this is what is left before winter, a much appreciated plant firing away its last flames of autumn. It’s even clinging to my washing line – so, no clean wash there right now…
If you love a flower which happens to be on a star, it is sweet at night to gaze at the sky. All the stars are a riot of flowers.
― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
For winter then? Well the only flower growing here then is…the frost rose. I don’t know what you call them – if you have them where you live – but my grandmother always said they were frost roses. I wonder if there will be a renaissance for them in our homes this winter…?
Now we are looking forward to seeing your favourite flowers and plants – and don’t forget the stories (if there are any) – I know it will be a colourful and interesting parade! Please link to my original post and use the Lens-Artists tag.
Sincere thanks to Patti for a marvelous challenge that really got us testing and thinking over our photography. I think we all learned something from each other!
Next week Amy will be our host, so be sure to visit her amazing site for inspiration and details! Until then, stay safe and be kind.
Leya 
Found three months later when still vetting mail from the long period I spent in hospital! How utterly beautiful . . . you brought my early childhood into my eyes and heart . . . I remember those fiends of white anemonies in Estonia also . . . a fairytale then as it is now . . . . hugs
Stunning flowers! I love how you show many flowers from different perspectives and I especially like the perspectives of your blue anemone photos. The frost roses make for a winning shot for me too. They are gorgeous.
Thank you for a lovely comment!
Hi Leya – I just love the different blooms you shared – with such a nice variety in color and in setting
Thank you – glad you liked them!
😊🌸
Thank you Leya for this extraordinary and beautiful flowers. I am delighted to see other entries because I had a glance of different kinds of amazing flowers. I just hope I can have the magnolia flower in our place.
I am glad you liked them! Thank you.
What beautiful, beautiful photographs. Thank you for enriching my day!
I have an evergreen magnolia, which barely blooms. Maybe six blooms a year. SAD.
Here are my roses: https://anthropologist.wordpress.com/2022/10/23/lens-artists-photo-challenge-221-favorite-flower-and-why/
Thank you , Marianne, for your comment and roses! I hope your magnolia will give you abundantly in the future!
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Great choice of challenge! I had not made the link that hepaticas are anemones, or if I every knew, I’d forgotten it – you learn something every day. The pictures are very uplifting. I’ve joined in here: https://susanrushton.net/2022/10/22/favourite-flowers-and-why/ and am off to check out some other submissions, which will be fun.
Thank you so much for joining in, Susan, a wonderful post!
Thank you for the challenge, and boy was it! Lovely flowers, here is mine
https://thrumyeyes291981044.wordpress.com/2022/10/21/lapc-221221-flower-favorites-and-why/
Thank you!
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Well, finally here I am with a post, and yes, there is a decaying tulip!! : https://suejudd.com/2022/10/21/lapc-221-flower-favourites-and-why/
♥
I hoped you would enjoy this post, and you did!!
♥
🥰
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Beautiful set of your favorite flowers, AC! I love your wildflower and the plumbago especially.
Sorry for beng late … Here is my entry: https://shareandconnect.wordpress.com/2022/10/21/lapc-221-flower-favourites/
Thank you, Amy! You are not late – I always am! Hope you had a lovely vacation too!
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Love the plumbago
The colour is irresistible, isn’t it?
100%
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What gorgeous flowers you have selected. Once again we have a common love – those first blooms of spring! Thank you for this challenge which had me smiling from start to finish!
I am so glad it made you smile, Lindy! Thank you for your amazing blossoms!
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A breathtakingly beautiful post. I loved the flower with the grasses and so many more.
Thank you so much, Susan – happy you liked them! Mostly spring flowers.
This is totally exquisite Leya.I am really a great fan of your photographs and this one is no exception. My favourite from this gallery is the bottle brush, I´ve seen them more often in Asia and i believe its tropical´. And that wild fire plants–we have them all over here as well and they are just a sight stealer here.
Thank you so much for a lovely comment! Red seems to be your colour then?
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Beautfiul floral post, A-C 👏 Love the carpet of white anenomes; I haven’t seen those is such abundance here but we do get carpets of bluebells in the woods 😃 I thought I’d go with my favourite tropical for your fantastic topic: https://jezbraithwaite.blog/2022/10/20/orchids-lens-artists-challenge-221-fotd/
So glad you liked this, and I know the bluebells often show up in spring posts – they are wonderful. Your favourites are mine as well – orchids. A marvelous gallery!
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Hi Ann-Christine, as promised, here is my entry for the week. Enjoy.
…and it is marvellous…
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Such a beautiful flower post Ann-Christine! I love flowers and it’s difficult to choose a favourite! Your photos are so beautiful !! Lovove them all!
Thank you kindly, Aletta! I hoped this would be a happy challenge!
Definitely 🌸😊
♥
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Love so many of your favourites and the why of them is so interesting. I suppose that any country with winter would always prefer the spring flowers – I know I do. In Vancouver we tend to have the opposite weather from Scandinavia; we had a horrible wet spring that lasted all the way into early July but in mid-October we are in the middle of an endless summer. And the asters are amazingly abundant this year, masses of purple. Your macros are always astounding – and I too am in love with the bottlebrush flower.
I am glad you liked them! Interesting about the opposite weather too. Great your asters are abundant this year – so are mine, but the rains have all but destroyed them already… And another bottlebrush lover – yay!
Wonerful gallery! Love all the photos, especially the ones of wild flowers 🙂
Here are my flower favourites:
Thank you, Agatha!
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Such a stunning tribute to the flowers you love. Here’s my emotional attachment to a few throughout my life. https://odaciuk.wordpress.com/2022/10/18/floral-emotions/
Thank you, Olga!
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Beautiful photos. The bottlebrush used to be a winter flower in my mother’s garden in north India. In a few months Magnolias will start blooming on the lower slopes of the Himalayas. I’m surprised that they find it a struggle in Sweden; unless my memory is false, I’ve seen them growing well just south of the Baltic. All the rest of your favourites may find the temperature here too warm, although I find several kinds of anemones in the Himalayas.
Don’t see my pingback, so for safety, here is the link: https://anotherglobaleater.wordpress.com/2022/10/18/walking-on-elephants-head/
Thanks.
Thank you! I saw my first Bottlebrush in Nepal. And the Magnolias, I don’t know how cold it is on the lower slopes of the Himalayas, but here they turn black with the night frost if it goes down to 2-3 degrees or more. And I have seen anemonies in the Himalayas – beautiful.
Interestingly, it does go down to 2-3 degrees often in the parts where the magnolias grow. I wonder whether they find slightly warmer micro-climates. I’ll keep a watch for that
Micro-climates sounds believable, valleys do have more of them.
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Besides these gorgeous floral beauties, the wonders are certainly blooming amazingly in your captures, Ann-Christine.
Very lovely collection 🙂
Thank you for a lovely comment, Hammad!
hello a. c.,
a very interesting theme you have chosen for this one, it will not be easy, have thought about the why ? all the pictures are fantastic and each have something special for themselves
here is my contribution to the challenge, https://wp.me/pdALlZ-85.
many greetings robert
Thank you, Robert, and I liked your interpretation very much!
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These are all wonderful captures A.C. What a collection, it makes me happy! Here is my entry https://mywanderings.travel.blog/2022/10/17/my-kind-of-purple-flowers/
Thank you! And your purples made me happy too!
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Like you I love magnolias and ours last just a little longer than yours, it seems. But we don’t have anything quite like those gorgeous anemones. The purple ones are glorious and I love how the white ones carpet the ground. I guess our equivalent would be the bluebells that everyone flocks to the woods to see. I don’t have any of those in my post but I have (fairly unusually for me) chosen to concentrate on my own country in a vain attempt to restrict the number of flowers! https://www.toonsarah-travels.blog/gallery-some-favourite-english-flowers/
I love it that you chose your own country for flowers, that makes it even more interesting. I know about the bluebells, in spring English bloggers post a lot on them! They are beautiful and they also cover the forest floor.
To be honest I chose to focus on my own country as a way of narrowing it down, otherwise the post would have been even longer than it was!
That is an OK reason, but you already knew how difficult it would be…;-D
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These are such beautiful, delicate images. What a lovely way of cheering up the blogosphere! Here’s mine: https://margaret21.com/2022/10/17/the-power-of-yellow/
And yours the same – I feel a bit of shame not posting one single yellow flower – thank you for these sunny soleils!
When you have posted such beauties? I think not! Such a flower bonanza this week. Marvellous!
♥
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Are your pingbacks working? Here’s my post: https://fairplay740.wordpress.com/2022/10/15/lens-artists-challenge-221-flower-favourites-and-why/
Seems not to…thank you for reminding!
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Great topic this week and a beautiful collection of flowers. Here is mine – https://ramyatantry.wordpress.com/2022/10/17/favourite-flowers/
Gorgeous!
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I think these photos are lovely. There’s a nice variation and flowers are always nice to see.
However, my favourite is of the plant that appears to be growing over the building. It has a sense of nature reclamation.
Here’s mine for this one:
Thank you, I love it too – it turns red in autumn.
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I love those purple flowers! My favorite color.
♥
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So sorry Ann-Christine, I thought I had already commented on this wonderful challenge. I enjoyed preparing my post, going through my archives. Your photography was certainly an inspiration. Great challenge and beautifully photographed.
Thank you, Anne! No worries…I am terribly late in answering too. Every member of our family (almost) has his or her birthday in October, and I had a photo exhibition too. A bit stressed out.
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Truly an inspired post, AC. Just stunningly beautiful. It’s easy to see how flowers make you happy and give you so much beauty to fill your life, your garden, and your sun room. I love that you included St. Exupery’s quote. Perfect.
Here is my bouquet of flowers!
Thank you, Patti! Your bouquet is much appreciated!
You’re very welcome.
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Thank you for these beautiful flowers and for this challenge! Your flowers made me smile this morning.
I am happy to have made you smile!
Such beautiful flowers, Ann-Christine and my favourite topic …. Here is my entry for the challenge
Thank you, Bren!
Dear Ann-Christine,
thanks a lot for sharing these pictures of flowers. We just have quite some plants flowering in our garden right now. But we always have problems with the names. We got an app but our gardener told us that we can’t trust it. Well, we don’t mind, we just enjoy our flowers.
Have a happy day
The Fab Four of Cley
🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂
I am glad you enjoy flowers – and enough to use an app. I have three apps for plants and flowers, and I think most of the times I try it, I finally know the name of the plant. The apps give some alternatives, and then you just have to use your sharpest eye and common sense for comparison!
Lucky you having flowers still!
♥♥♥♥
Great topic this week. I love the unique ways you photograph your flowers. I think Miss Willmont Ghost was not sufficiently scary to bother the bee. 🙂 The plumbago color is so delicate. I love it. The aster with the touch of water or maybe frost was stunning. Here are my photos for the week. 🙂 https://alwayswrite.blog/2022/10/15/hot-coffee-with-a-sigh-of-relief/ Have a great rest of your weekend, Leya. 🙂
Thank you, Marsha! I guess Miss Wilmott’s Ghost is there for the wellbeing of the bees instead!
They should be in great shape!
♥
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Truly incredible examples of your favorite flowers, Leya! I LOVE that white ghost flower! Your spring is a lot like ours in Eastern Washington–a big celebration when the spring flowers arrive after the snow melts! I already had a few flowers in a gallery for my Sunday Stills post for Sunday morning (theme: fleeting moments). It will link then. Thank you for hosting!
Terri, how interesting that our spring looks a lot like yours! I am not good at different seasons in other parts of the world. Celebration is the word! Thank you for linking – looking forward to seeing your gallery.
Thanks for hosting! Our latitudes are similar I believe.
I love those blue anemones, we don’t have them over here in Belgium. It’s an awesome shot you made of them !
Lovely to see some spring flowers, now that we are in mid autumn and preparing for winter.
Thank you so much – yes I thought many of us needed cheerful colours and blooms in the midst of autumn!
I love your flowers ever so much. No favourites as I just love flowers of all shapes and types. I am thinking of what to post and it will be hard to not do a flower over load 🙂
I feel your pain Brian!
♥
Brian….there can be no flower overload…we cannot get enough of them, can we! Looking forward to seeing them!
What a beautiful post Ann-Christine. Everything is pretty here, but Miss Willmott’s Ghost is the one that captivated me the most!
I am so happy to participate in this challenge. https://flightsofthesoul.wordpress.com/2022/10/15/lens-artists-221/
And I am so happy you are here! A beautiful post!
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Beautiful!! enjoyed every one – thanks Eco 🙂
♥ Thank you!
Ann-Christine you have set us the most beautiful challenge. And your own examples are just stunning. Thank you for sharing
Thank you, Karina! Looking forward to seeing your post!
🙂
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Magnificent floral photography Ann-Christine, that field of wood anemones is sublime. Are the blue ones Hepatica? I once tried growing them here, but wasn’t successful, they are such a gorgeous blue colour. I shall have to have a think about this one, can’t possibly match your images though.
I’m back – impossible to choose so I hope you like my take on the challenge
Always! I just thought you might not be able to choose – or I hoped you wouldn’t…and send us abundantly instead! Thank you!
Jude, thank you – so glad you liked the flowers, and I agree on Hepatica – a wonderful colour. I have some in my garden as well, and the ants move them around, so I find them in new places every spring! I haven’t planted them though, they grow in the wild part of the garden. Looking forward to seeing your flowers and hearing your stories!
Ah, too beautiful, Ann-Christine! Inspirational too, your photos are so wonderful, your words and quotes just perfect. I do like the concept of frost rose too. Thank you for this amazing post.
Here is mine:
Thank you, Sofia – hard choices to make for me…and I guess for many of us! I just read your post – wonderful as ever. And I believe you filled in my missing flowers and shared dreams. I had some lovely memories coming to me from your words and images as well. Thank you for that too.
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Just when everyone is wooing over autumn, you open the door to the brilliant colors of ”all year long”. I love the way you presented your challenge. And the why’s that go with it. My favorite was the white wood anemonies. I agree, we all just love the warm sunshine. I love that you love the bottle brush. When I first moved to Arizona I remember thinking it was so different, I had to have one. They thrive here in the desert and are shrubs that need to be cut back frequently. Fun for me. And I often play with their bloom time in hopes they bloom during Christmas.
I have way to many favorites and have a million reasons why. lol. I will join you later in the week. On our way to Joshua Tree National Park. Could it help me narrow down? Probably not. lol Have a good week. Enjoy the splatter of colors from around the world…
Thank you for your thoughts, Donna! Narrowing down? I regretted choosing this challenge for some minutes there… I think we all appreciate the loveliness of flowers – any time of the year, any time of the day. I am glad you loved the white wood anemonies, and I didn’t know the bottlebrush was that common in Arizona! I always learn new things from blogging and bloggers, and that is only one thing I love about it…
Looking forward to seeing your choices!
Yes, I enjoy learning from others also. And find out what brings out people’s passions, So fun. I loved the challenge. Mine is different, but I think it works.
Donna, did you send your post? Some bloggers tell me the pingback doesn’t work?
Yes. I will try again… thank you…
Found you in the reader though!
I am most happy we are not in a competitive situation with our blog posts Ann-Christine, as I believe first prize would surely be yours! Your images are magical and your knowledge and appreciation of nature’s bounty is well beyond my reach! Your asters and the ghost are my personal favorites, along of course with the magnolias. So looking forward to seeing our followers posts this week – we will be amazed I know by the beauty to come from your marvelous challenge. My response is here https://travelsandtrifles.wordpress.com/2022/10/15/lens-artists-challenge-221-favorite-flowers/
You are too kind, Tina – I truly loved your post and the collage was a dream ! I too look forward to letting my eyes rest on all the beauties from our followers!
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The most exquisite flowers ever! Not sure how you do it- purely from love, I think. Impossible to compete with my little crimson bougainvillea. Glad you can hold on to all that beauty in your glass house.
I love your crimson bougainvillea! And who’s competing? And what I have in my glasshouse – you have in your vicinity all the time, Jo!
Only some of them 🤣💖
😀
A lovely selection in all but the photos of the delicate spring anemones are really special.
Thank you so much, Judith, and I am glad the spring anemonies were your favourites!
I thought this would be appropriate for this challenge: https://chava61.wordpress.com/2022/10/15/lapc-221-flower-favourites-and-why/
And it certainly is!
What a magnificent set of photos, A-C! My heart is filled with joy at seeing them. I too love ice flowers but I don’t see them in Arizona. 🙂 I love the shot of the wood anemones as it reminds me of walking through the wildflowers in Illinois. We have bottlebrush here too and I love the magnolia photo. Thanks for the beauty!
So glad you liked them, Janet! When old and sweet memories come back to you – then I am happy!
I love seeing these flowers, some different from those on this continent. The field of white anemones is a favorite!
Thank you, Dawn! One of the advantages again, with blogging! We get to know about other countries and their nature, other people and their nature.
what a wonderful collection of flowers. All the colors are great. I also love the apple blossoms when they still have their lite pink beside the white. The bis image is definitely the wood anemone, where the stamen shadows are visible on the petals.
The ice flowers at the end made me smile.
My small collection is here: https://solaner.wordpress.com/2022/10/15/lens-artists-photo-challenge-221-flower-favourites-and-why/
Thank you, Andre! Happy you liked my flowers, and I guess you have had ice flowers (roses) in your home as well! Because they made you smile…
You’re welcome, Ann-Christine. And you’re right, sometimes we also have ice flowers. As all of our windows are well insulated, we can see them only on the windows of our garden house (tool shed). But not yet. I assume it will be a few more weeks before they appear for the first time.
Hopefully!
yep. This year, I’m not eager to get a long period of very low temperature.
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‘‘Tis always Spring in the photo archives. 😀👏
GREAT great photos, by the way.
♥
😀
Aaah, excellent! That eryngium (MissWilmott’s Ghost) features! Yay! And I’m with tou on a loving magnolia’s, apple blossom and for me, cherry blossom
♥
Oh Ann-Christine, what a beautiful floral post. I think you are going to have a fun week and see some incredible flowers. 😀 😀 No doubt I’ll be back. Thanks so much for hosting 😀
♥
😍