Spring nears and some of my favourite flowers are budding/flowering prolifically right now the rain has stopped (although our major supply dam is just overflowing).

So here come the little native orchids ...





... and this one still in the shade but I like the shape ...

Things seem to have slowed down in the forum of late and I can probably understand why. However, let's use Sallyanne's fawn as a lead and take a moment to rejoice in nature.

Spring closing, summer coming quickly, a couple of hot days this week and now looking at the low 40s celsius tomorrow, so some flowers currently exhibting themselves in my garden and pond ...



From top left across and down
1. beautiful pink, aromatic David Austin rose
2. unusual green flowered callistemon (bottlebrush)
3. an iris in the pond
4. one of 5 giant (2 metres) kangaroo paw
5. shady shot of the pink flowers on one of my native blueberry ash trees - now 5 metres tall
6. an exotic pink native lilli pilli



... and another native favourite 'xmas bells' just started flowering - yes it's a bit early!

nice pictures, OMG!
once in a while, let me use OMG style to transform ... OMG pictures! hehehe...

How about "Attack of the Killer Flower"

no adjustments yet except a crop and scale down

the photo is very nice as is, Rich, thus, instead of trying to enhance it, I did a "phantasy manipulation"

I have a "killer flower".... except I saw it at Butchart Gardens in Victoria, Canada. They called it a "fringed tulip", I believe..... I used the National Geographic filter on it...

Finally had some time to try out my camera on flowers. Here are a couple from yesterday. Feel free to grab any to use to play with. They are large files, so I think I need to attach them. The fourth has to be attached in a second post. These are the flowers in the attachments.

Fourth flower attachment.

on of those, on wood



very nice photos, 2-ton !

Same effects, different backgrounds.

Rose of Sharon

My Mom's favorite flower; Dad planted several trees over the years; these trees were planted after my Mom passed away though. Miss both of them now. Just took these a few minutes ago and thought I would share.

And a bit of play.

http://postimg.org/image/b31wyx773/full

Beautiful, Lyle. I love flowers.

I have always thought that Rose of Sharon looked like small hibiscus!
This is some kind of small lilac bush. I say small in comparison to our other big lilacs, the little flowers on the bracts are smaller, too. Anyone have a better way to make the enlarged flowers in the magnifying glass look more "fisheye"? Seems when I try to use the sliders to make it more rounded then it gets too distorted in the center.

Thanks Pat/2-ton. Like the lilac flowers too by the way, Pat. Bet they smell wonderful. My favorite aftershave is Old Spice and basically it's lilac sauce. lol

I love Lilacs too, Lyle. My mother and mother in law both had beautiful ones.

Your right 2-ton, that Rose of Sharon is an Hibiscus, either Hibiscus Syriacus or Hibiscus Rosa-sinensis. Their is also an Hypericum Calcinum which is also called a Rose of Sharon.

Maybe this tutorial can help 2-ton.

https://youtu.be/044izCvHYyY

Such beautiful flowers lylejk and 2-ton!

Thanks Ella, I will try that!

Another magnifying glass flower picture. I had hoped to make the glass look more like glass, but everything I tried masked the flower a bit. Next time maybe I will just try some light reflections on the glass area.