Janet Brien's photos with the keyword: vine

These flowers are so beautiful and cover vines with countless blossoms. Harry & David had a magnificent and beautifully trained wisteria (it may have been several plants) that covered heavy trellising and an arbor that created a shady cave with a bench inside to sit on. What fun to watch people wandering around while semi-cloaked in the darkness under the wisteria's cover!

I have a soft spot for wisteria. My parents had a summer cabin at a recreational river community and in the area's center was a magnificent wisteria vine that must have been there for 50 years. The main vine was many feet in diameter and as it branched out, it was trained to cover a huge trellised area. The lush greenery offered protection against the summer sun and naughty kids loved to climb around up among the vines (I would NEVER do such a thing...truly! :D). We were never around when the wisteria was in bloom, so I was amazed when I finally saw how beautiful and fragrant the flowers were. Every time I see these vines I think back fondly at my childhood and teen year summer weekends at Summer Home Park.

I had a wonderful time growing flowers from seeds, and I especially loved growing Morning Glories! I adore climbing vines with their tendrils clinging to everything. There are so many interesting ways they attach to things they encounter. Even the beginning of a vine is wonderful to look at, with its gleaming, hairy green face peering out to see where it might find a place to begin winding and sending out tendrils!

We went over to our friend's house for the afternoon today and I brought my camera along to take pictures. I wandered around taking pictures for quite a while and had a thoroughly good time. I ended up coming home with 280 pictures, many of which were garbage of course, but I ended up taking maybe 2 dozen that I think turned out quite nicely. The problem with taking zillions of pictures is that you have to spend the time looking through them all, tossing the garbage and whittling down the number to just the best ones. When I distill a large number of pictures, I end up having a big argument with myself as to which pictures I should process. In the end, I must follow my heart because I can't work on all of the pictures that make the final cut! Today was especially hard. I am crazy about the picture that follows this one..it's strange and weird and wonderful! But the picture you see here...it makes my heart sing. There's something I find very special about it, so I followed my heart and made it my Picture of the Day. I would love to know what you think...I have 4 pictures to share today, do you have a favorite? How do you resolve YOUR conflicts with choosing pictures? Mariel Margaret "Mia" Hamm (born March 17, 1972) is a retired American professional soccer player. Hamm played many years as a forward for the United States women's national soccer team and was a founding member of the Washington Freedom. Hamm held the record for international goals, more than any other player, male or female, in the history of soccer, until 2013 when fellow American Abby Wambach scored her 159th goal to break the record. Hamm is also the third most capped female player in soccer history behind Kristine Lilly and Christie Rampone, appearing in 275 international matches. She also leads the team with most assists with 144. She is the author of Go For the Goal: A Champion's Guide to Winning in Soccer and Life and appeared in the HBO documentary Dare to Dream: The Story of the U.S. Women's Soccer Team.Washington Post columnist Michael Wilbon called Hamm, "Perhaps the most important athlete of the last 15 years." Wikipedia: Mia Hamm Explored on September 15, 2013. Highest placement, page 5.

I tried very hard to capture this tendril! It was close to the ground and hiding behind leaves. I wanted to get JUST the "droplet pane" in focus while letting the rest of the larger circle fall off into blur and that presented such a challenge! Leaves I moved would move back in the way...droplets kept falling onto the vine and threatening to dislodge the droplets on the circles...and I was getting more and more soaked! But I hoped that after about half a dozen attempts, that maybe one would come out...and I got this one, hooray!!! :D

This beautiful tendril features a droplet of water which contains the end of the tendril and refracts a leaf below!

When I saw this tendril, I instantly pictured that special symbol that you find on sheets of music. My husband immediately said what it looked like, "Oh, it looks like a treble clef! :D

3 more tendril pictures can be found in the notes above! :) Yesterday I planned to take pictures of Sweet Pea tendrils but a beautiful Red Milkweed Beetle stopped me in my tracks. This morning I was determined to get to my destination! I'd been waiting for the rain to stop and finally it looked like I could sneak out for a photo session, so out I bounced with my camera in hand! Well, no longer than five minutes after I got to the sweet peas, the rain began again, heavy drops plopping onto the vines, splashing onto my camera, and spattering my glasses. However, I decided to stay as long as I could because I hoped that I might capture the droplets on the tendrils, and indeed I did! This picture actually shows the least amount of droplets, but how could I not choose this for my picture of the day? It shows perfectly how I feel about tendrils, and about this very special place, the only spot on our 26 acres where these wild sweet peas grow! This area is magical, a dark spot in our lower forest where only beams of sunlight shine through the trees, and it is here where I also find many of the special mushrooms that I've shared. How lucky it was that I captured the mood of this place without knowing it...only when I saw this on my computer did I discover how special this image was! :) Explored on June 27, 2013. Highest placement, page 2 (#31)

Passion Flowers are climbing vine plants, and they send out these wonderful tendrils to climb up trees. This image was taken during my trip to San Francisco during September 12-15, 2011.

This is a graceful, curling tendril that will work its way upwards to pull the Passion Flower up higher and higher. Cool, eh?! :D This image was taken during my trip to San Francisco during September 12-15, 2011.

Yesterday I posted a picture of a wild cucumber blossom and a tendril. Today I'd like to show you how beautiful and graceful the vining plant looks with fresh new green leaves and tendrils stretching out with hopes to find something to climb! You can see why I find these plants so irresistable to photograph, they're just so cool! This image was taken in April, 2012.

I only had a few moments to visit our lower forest, but it didn't take long to spot these newly emerging leaves of the plant called "Hairy Vetch," and it will eventually produce lovely magenta blossoms over the course of two-three months! I loved the way the sunlight was shining through the melted frost on the leaves!