We had a choice, see a terraced bounty of tulips at Ananda Village’s Crystal Hermitage Garden in Nevada City or a small patch of them locally in Fair Oaks. Ray and I remembered the crowded walkways and decided to go to Jensen Botanical Gardens. Fortunately, we were the only people there.
I had my 80 mm macro lens on to get up close to these beauties and I was amazed at the variety they planted. Take a look.
So not only did we save time and gas money, we experienced a beautiful tulip garden.
We are back at Crystal Hermitage Garden, Ananda Village in Nevada City. In my last post, I showed you the tulips planted by the volunteers and promised to show you more of the grounds. Well, I’m keeping that promise. Tulips are planted in October and bloom in April when the Tulip Festival is held. As of this writing the Festival is over, but many people enjoyed its beauty for the month and a half it was available.
The Garden is on three terraced levels. The bottom gives us a view of the mountains. In one picture you can see the gold top of the Temple where members and guests can meditate/pray.
The middle level shows the lovely gardens, pool, and gazebo.
The top level continues with rows of tulips and a small church.
This ends the 2022 tour. Hopefully, in 2023, they will plant again in October and receive guests in April.
We had our fingers crossed because this year, after a 2-year hiatus because of the Covid-19 pandemic, Ananda Village, in Nevada City, opened their beautiful garden to us. Each year volunteers plant and care for beautiful tulips in the Crystal Hermitage Garden. This year we had to buy tickets online for a specific date and time. I think that was wise so they could handle all the visitors after a 2-year close.
Why did we have our fingers crossed? It rained for days before we were to go and was drizzling the morning we left. We didn’t get rained on, but it was cloudy and sometimes sunshine poked through. We were in luck and the tulips had lots of water drops on them.
This will be a 2-part post. Here are some of the tulips we saw.
Next week, I’ll show you the wonderfully landscaped grounds and more tulip beds. Oh, I’m not complaining about the rain. It was welcome since we are in a drought year. I think we will still be rationed this summer.
Years ago while taking pictures, with a small point and shoot, at the Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park, Colorado, Richard asked me why I was squatting. I truly didn’t know photography then, but I knew that to get a better picture I needed to get down low. In her challenge this week, Tina is asking us to look at the same scene in different ways.
I’ve gone back into my archives to 2019, and found two instances where my changing distance, angle and perspective changed the image. First are the tulips at the Crystal Hermitage Gardens, Ananda Village. Just walking to face the flower while standing up changed the image. The picture on the left was lower to capture the sun and texture of the leaves.
Some more flowers. Sunflowers. Here we have a total landscape of the sunflowers. How beautiful and happy they look. Now coming in as close as we can without going into the field and changing orientation, a busy bee took the spotlight. The third image shows a little more of the bee’s habitat. And the last shows a side view of a sunflower opening.
For my last example, I chose a recent outing to the Salmon Falls Bridge, Pilot Hill, only seen during a drought and when the river bed is low. First, a full landscape view showing the river bed and bridge in the distance. Then close to the bridge. And finally a close up of the bridge itself. Each tells a story.
Thank you Tina for giving us this fun challenge!
Photos are our memories, and I’m glad to have images from Ananda Village‘s Crystal Hermitage Garden. Each year, volunteers plant tulips on the terraced hillside, creating such beauty worthy of a yearly visit. However, this year they didn’t open to the public because of the Pandemic.
Ananda Village is just north of Nevada City in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains. The village is run by a spiritual association that provides a range of tools to strengthen spiritual lives of individuals of all ages. It follows the teaching of Paramhansa Yogananda and his disciple, Swami Kriyananda, to meet the needs of spiritual seekers. They also have retreats and rent cabins to individuals who just want to get away and meditate.
A group of us go up each year to take pictures. These are from last year.
Thank you Tina Schell of Travels and Trifles for this Spring Lens-Artist Challenge!
The tulips bloom only in April at the Crystal Hermitage Garden in Ananda Village in Nevada County. So, we waited for sunshine and no rain. We finally decided to go when there would be a possibility of sunshine, meaning partly cloudy with some sun. This resulted with some tulips open, but most shut.
But it was worth the trip. Planted each year, the gardens are always beautiful and attract visitors from all over to see the more than 17,000 plants. This quote was taken from one of their sites.
“We planted over 111 varieties of mid and late season Dutch bulbs this year,” said lead Gardener, Nancy Mair. “We blend tulips with a rainbow of complementary pansies, wisteria, rhododendrons, azaleas, peonies, dogwood trees and the fabulous cherry tree, so that guests enjoy a different garden in each terrace.”
I’ll admit that I was upset that after waiting, we still were under dark skys for most of our time there. But, as usual, it was a great experience. Until next April here are some of the images I took.
Last year, the sun was shining, the tulips were open and we were in a drought. This year, it was drizzling, threatening to pour as we visited the Crystal Hermitage Gardens in Ananda Village, Nevada City. It was still beautiful, in fact the flowers were more vibrant.
This was a learning experience also–isn’t every outing. I had never shot in rain, and it was a challenge at first. I put my camera into a protective plastic sleeve, but had difficulty turning the lens barrel. So I shot with the cover on top of the camera. Very inconvenient! Between shots, I tucked my camera under my jacket. The drizzle kept up most of the time we were there. One time it came pouring down and we ducked for cover.
Ananda Village is a cooperative spiritual community dedicated to the teachings of Paramhansa Yogananda, founded by his direct disciple, Swami Kriyananda. It’s a peaceful place and the people are great. Yearly they plant tulips in a terraced garden and invite the public to visit. We weren’t the only people walking the garden that morning, and not the only ones with cameras. I wish it wasn’t so far away. I enjoy meditating and this place would be great.
We were there on a Tuesday, and the sun didn’t shine until Friday. I heard that we had more rain this year than Seattle, Washington. One ski resort is thinking of staying open all summer! Could you guess–the drought is officially over. As I write this blog, it’s overcast and threatening to rain.
Rain or sunshine, I’m not worried about the tulip garden. They will have visitors no matter what the weather.
Right now there’s 35 matzo balls boiling on the stove, a turkey roasting in the roaster and chicken soup cooling on the counter. I’m in the kitchen to make sure there’s enough water in the stock pots so the matzo balls don’t burn. They can when the water gets low; I’ve done it before!
Happy Passover to all of you who celebrate the holiday also. It’s late this year. I look back at this holiday with fondness. I remember my entire maternal family gathered around my grandparents long table, my grandfather reading the entire hagadah (story) in Hebrew, and the rest of us reading from mismatched hagadahs just to keep busy. It seemed like agony then, but now, if I could only go back. After my grandparents passed, Passover was never the same.
I have tried to create my own holiday tradition for my children and grandchildren. I hope that my older grandchildren will create a tradition for their families when that occurs.
Of course, this has nothing to do with the Crystal Hermitage Gardens which are located in Ananda Village located in the Sierra Nevada Mountains near Grass Valley, California.
The Exploring Photography Meetup group organized a visit to these beautiful gardens to photograph the amazing variety of tulips planted. I can’t imagine the effort it took to create this beauty for residents and garden visitors. This will be a two-part post because I have many images to show you. Today, I’ll show you the flowers. Most are tulips and there are some others.
No captions again. I’m way too busy in the kitchen preparing my portion for a pot-luck Seder with friends!
Slow Shutter Speed 