Rosa 'Sweet Juliet & bottom Rosa 'Ghislaine de Feligonde' 3 September 2025

It would seem that practice makes perfect also makes boring. After having scanned around 4000 of my plants from the garden since I began a summer in 2001 I have gotten pretty good at it. It helps that I have always had the art deco lamp from which I can clip a thin bamboo pole. 

In the last 7 years I have had a second generation Epson scanner. It is an Epson Perfection700Photo. I use my 22 year-old Photoshop 8. Its detailed Shadow/Highlight tool in LAB is what enables me to control the contrast and to bring out shadow detail.

This particular scan was not an easy one (that made it even more interesting as I was combining two kinds of roses. Rosa ‘Ghislaine de Feligonde’ is a much smaller one. At the end I added a leaf (also smaller) of the rose so I believe the result is lovely. I am including here a photograph of the scanning. I used a Fuji X-E3 at 400 ISO.

After all these years it is irrelevant to me if anybody appreciates these. I find that doing them is fun.

Today was a day when I really remembered my Rosemary as I did two chores that she would have strongly nagged me to do. “Alex, it is very hot and the potted roses are dry. Please water them.” “Alex the cats’ litter box smells. You have to change it.” This I did and I could almost feel her presence and that smile when she approved of what I did.