ColorChallenge - Sunday Purple - What's Purple? A Garden Walk - Photography

I was about to go out and do some gardening when I noticed that-- thanks to a few warm and sunny days-- the lavender around our garden labyrinth has started to bloom in earnest.

So I went and grabbed the camera, deciding it was a lovely opportunity to enter a post in @kalemandra's photography #colorchallenge since today is "Sunday Purple."

We originally planted the lavender when we started building the labyrinth in July of 2012. It seems the lavender has grown stronger and more vibrant every year-- maybe it's the good vibes we put into it! My wife works with clients in the labyrinth, and we do meditations out there.

Definitely plenty of purple here!

When you get up close, it's just a mass of blooms, just opening

Since we have almost 100 plants (and it's all totally natural/organic) we end up harvesting quite a bit of it to sell through a local shop. This is the kind that's generally referred to as English lavender.

Of course, I'm a sucker for close-up work, so that's what many of these photos are.

The reason the one on the left looks "bluer" than the others is that the sun temporarily went behind a cloud as I was photographing... it's interesting how that "cools" the particular shade of purple.

Once I was done with the lavender, I thought I'd add a bit to the challenge by walking around our garden with the general question "What's purple?" around our property.

It seems quite a bit... surprisingly more than I expected. I suppose I never spent that much time thinking about it, but it does seem like purple-- along with yellow-- may be the most common color found in flowers.

I'm not sure what this flowering plant is-- it's probably some kind of weed, but we always let it grow in peace because it sets quite pretty purple flowers... and it also works somewhat as a ground cover; not very much else seems to grow where it is.

As a result, we've generally just left it to grow... we tend to not be very particular about only having "fine" plants in the garden.

Around the corner, I noticed there was a pale purple thistle in bloom, so snapped a couple of shots of that, which you'll see down below.

Of course, the fact that we have thistles blooming in the garden will tell you that we're not exactly perfectionists when it comes to weeding!

However, you can be pretty sure that I will be out there whacking down that thistle before it sets its downy seedpods that'll fill the place with tiny thistles next year... it's pretty, but not THAT pretty! And kind of prickly and unpleasant.

Pale purple thistle in bloom...

Same plant, different cluster of flowers...

Walking a little further, I noticed one of our sage bushes is starting to bloom-- purple.

In this case, we have purple happening in two levels: the flower itself, as well as the veins on the outside of the buds.

Interesting story with this-- we have three large healthy bushes... all of which came from tiny cuttings we took from a bush outside a local shop (yes, with permission!) and rooted... three years later, they are quite impressive!

So there's my "Sunday Purple" from walking around our garden! Thanks for indulging my photography interest.

If you're interested,  I also suggest checking out the supporting @colorchallenge page! There, you will also more explanatory posts about the challenge, as well as a number of resteems of participants' posts. 

How about YOU? Have you even done any of the color challenges? Leave a comment-- share your own experiences and feedback!

(As usual, all text and images by the author, unless otherwise credited. This is original content, created expressly for Steemit)
Posted 20170709 19:54 PDT