Strawflowers/Camera Fun on a Windy Day

I have been resting my knee, which is finally starting to heal after my fall on it 2 weeks ago. I've really felt sorry for myself that I couldn't garden. Today, I was able to go out and do some deadheading and picture taking.

In the colander are the strawflowers that I was able to harvest for drying today. It is best to pick them while the center is still closed tightly, because they open more while drying. Some of these may open enough for the center to show, and then they may shed. I don't usually keep any stem on them. I place them in baskets or glass dishes to have flowers in the house. I also sometimes mix them with other dried flowers and give them as gifts. Click here to see the post I did last fall, where I talked more about growing them.

I normally do a good job keeping up picking the flowers I like to dry, including statice. This year, I have been enjoying the blooms in the garden, and taking longer to get them picked. In the past, if I saw someone post a photo like the next one, I would ask them if they knew those could be picked to dry, and that it should be done before they opened like this. Even though my words would be encouraging and polite, in my mind, I would think they didn't know how to grow these, and that they were being negligent. Do you grow strawflowers? Do you dry them?

For some reason, I had my camera set differently, and when I went to turn on the macro feature, the camera told me to hold down the button for super macro. I have read parts of the manual to my camera, which I got last December, but when I've gone to try the super macro, I couldn't figure it out. Well, now I know how! Yippee! Now, I need to learn which situations warrant its use. In the mean time, every one of the following photos were taken using super macro. It was sunny, and quite windy, but I clicked away anyway!

I saw lots of skippers on the statice, which would also normally be picked before now, and verbena bonariensis.

I'm glad to see the skippers enjoy the statice, and have been content letting it look pretty in the garden. Do you grow statice? Do you dry it or just let it mature on the plant?

I sometimes dry verbena, too. I think the skipper is as pretty as the flower.

Go, super macro, go! You can see the segments on the critter's antennae. Now do you know what it is? I sure have seen a lot of them this year.

My pineapple sage is finally starting to bloom.

Here's a closer view of skullcap blooms.

You can see what looks like tiny yellow blooms in the center of the aster.