A Rose Is a Rose

Fellows Riverside Gardens, which surround the D.D. and Velma Davis Visitor & Education Center at Mill Creek Park, see more than 400,000 visitors each year, park officials say. By far, the most popular collection here is the Rose Garden.

Count us among them. In this scenic area, four groups of roses flourish, reaching peak blooms in May and June. The Visitor Center also hosts an annual rose show -- this year on June 21 and 22. So it was that with cameras in hand, my husband and I trekked to the park on the first day of the show to see what we could see. My interest is in macro photography, particularly of flowers -- and not only was I hoping to get some wonderful photos of show entries, it was possible that at least some of the buds we'd seen a couple week earlier in the Rose Garden would be in full bloom.

Quite honestly, the rose show was nothing to crow about. Last year, both the main and lower levels of the visitor center were filled with fragrant, colorful roses grown by members of the local rose-growers organization. This year, less than a handful of tables were set up, and the flowers weren't very impressive.

Ah, but our disappointment faded quickly when we walked the short distance to the Rose Garden. Oh my, oh my! We were greeted by a sea of pinks, reds, whites, yellows and just about everything in between. I felt like a cat in a sand dune; where should I go next?
After half an hour of snapping away with my Canon EOS Digital Rebel, a Canon EF 100mm f/2.8 macro lens and a handy dandy monopod, I'd amassed quite a collection (actually, I'd used more restraint than usual; at this point, I'd kept the total number of photos to under 100). Then, a park ranger asked visitors if they'd exit the garden for 5 minutes or so -- a wedding was about to take place (one of four scheduled on this day, he noted) -- and the processional was to move through the garden to a pavilion overlooking Lake Glacier for the ceremony. Of course, we all agreed, moving to the perimeter where we could watch the wedding party and snap a few shots of other lovely flowers, including yellow and orange Calla Lilies.

We didn't return to the Rose Garden, meandering instead around the rest of the gardens and taking some landscape photos (I'd just purchased a nearly pocket-sized Canon Powershot A590 8 megapixel point-and-shoot camera to replace a similar-sized Sony Cybershot that had developed a fungus on the interior of the lens and wanted to see how it performed). After all, we reasoned, the roses will be in bloom for most of the summer, and the drive is short enough that we won't need to sell our firstborn son to pay for the gas to get there.

From there, we drove through the park to the Lily Pond, where we found several gaggles of geese begging for scraps and, for a couple of minutes, the blue heron who nests at the edge of the pond entertained us as he searched for snacks under the cool green water. For the record, I'm fairly happy with the new Canon, although the lighting at the pond was less than ideal and most of the photos weren't all that great. Although the jury's still out, I think it will serve the purpose nicely -- a highly portable and effective all-purpose camera I can tote with me when the SLR is just too bulky and heavy. Hey, guess I'll just have to make a return trip to Mill Creek Park on a sunnier day!