Ranunculus

or Look Ma, No Macro Lens In the fall I planted over a hundred ranunculus bulbs. Lisa highly favors that particular flower, and it typically is in bloom in the days around her birthday in April.
The photos in this post are of those ranunculus, which have been in bloom for around 10 days now (now being March 28). I don’t own a macro lens – a lens specifically designed for photographing small objects like flowers or bugs. These were shot with a Nikon 18mm-105mm AF VR zoom lens.
In the case of ranunculus, the use of the word “bulb” is a misnomer – they are shaped more like spiders or multi-fingered claws. But because of their shape, they were something of a bargain. I picked through the bulbs at Parkview Nursery, my favorite local nursery, carefully counting out 8 dozen of various colors, since the bulbs were sold by the dozen. It seemed a fitting amount for the area I had to plant.
When I planted the bulbs, I found that several “extras” were nested in the fingers of larger bulbs. I hadn’t noticed the nested bulbs when I counted them out, so I ended up with over a hundred, though I hadn’t aimed for that result.