Madi Arend, age 14, took this picture in Independence.

Ryan Arend, age 16, took this from his duck blind on the Wapsipinicon River in Independence.

From Alex Marzen, age 14

The Wapsi Mill in Independence on a calm day. Aunna Marzen took the photo. She is 13.

Ben Kelly took this photo of a burning bush from down his street.

This is Ben's sister Courtney. I was hoping she got out of the pile safely when....

I got this photo from Courtney of her 5-month-old mini-doxie, Milo. He appears to be in the same pile of leaves. That pile sure got its workout! Courtney says she is a mini-member of the Wapsi Warriors.

Makenzie Homan, age 9, took this photo at Black Hawk State Park in Lake View, IA.

Makenzie Homan took this photo, too, but this one was a little closer to home in Independence.

One of the geranium blooms

Crossandra. I can never remember the name of this. I had to look at an old Facebook comment from Heidi Tietz-DeSilva at Peterson and Tietz' in Waterloo.

This is a penta, I think. Sometimes the problem with taking a really close picture is trying to identify it a lot later!

One of the pansies in our Michael pot. It didn't like the really dry, really hot weather while we were on vacation in August.

Spiderwort from the north side of the house.

Another spiderwort. This is next to the white one for a nice contrast.

The spiderwort are near a yellow-leaf bleeding heart, which is next to the old-fashioned bleeding heart.

I threw in a coleus that needed some shade just to add some contrast to the greens.

Side profile of one of our columbine

An almost head on shot of the columbine.

A yellow and orange columbine

The stella de 'oro daylily that came with the house. We've moved it about three times and they have done well every single time!

Firefighter rose. It has a wonderful fragrance.

One of my south-side-of-the-house rose.

My pink south-of-the-house rose. Another one with a beautiful fragrance.

We had some extra pepper plants that we put on the south side of the house in between the perennials. This is the bell pepper.

One of the other pepper plants in between two Mock orange. I think this one is the Anaheim. They were all about a foot taller less than a month after this picture was taken.

The Anaheim.

This is the Jalapeno pepper plant. This one also shot up over a foot taller less than a month later.

The basket of flowers included zinnias, marigolds and a black-eyed susan vine. The marigolds dried out early and the other two fried in the hot spell a couple of weeks after this photo was snapped.

Sigrid rose bush, Sven and Ole's sister. It put out really small flowers, but it held it's own against the Japanese beetles.

One of the zinnias from the basket

The other zinnia in the basket.

Vinca vine, some petunias, the hardy geraniums along with some annuals. The dusty miller in the background is from last year. We will see if they come back next year, too.

the small petunias

I love osteospermum. I need to work more of this annual into my gardens.

A close up of a petunia. It is just asking those birds and bees to come in and have a sip.

The purple one.

The yellow daylily and the red gaillardia make a nice contrast.

A nice red yarrow. This one is only about 18" high.

My blue bellflower plant has one portion that blooms white.

Yellow yarrow and the bellflower. You can see the pink phlox peeking over in the middle of the screen.

The Shasta daisies were beautiful this year.

The pink phlox is apparently not as tasty to the rabbits as my white ones. Of course, it may be because this one has other plants around it keeping the cute, furry, bottomless-stomach rodents away.

yellow yarrow

I'm pretty sure I planted red bee balm on the hill. It was mostly white this year.

My miniature chinese rose was loaded this year.

The monarda up close and personalThe bumblebees love the monarda

Butterfly bush flowersOne of my lilies

One of my lilies

Black knight butterfly bush

Sven's flowers were beautiful. And tasty to the Japanese beetles.

Purple coneflower

Endless Summer Hydrangea

A lace top hydrangea

This one was taken at the end of March in Decorah by the trail close to Pulpit Rock Road.

Joyce took this photo on her way back from LaCrosse, WI. This was near LaCrescent, MN. She wants to know if they are migrating.

From Vicky in Garwin. Spring has sprung!

Taken by Theresa an James Cook on February 28 this year, but in Hampstead, North Carolina. So they cheated, but it is still great to see.

Another from Theresa and James Cook, also in Hampstead, NC.

This could be in our back yard, too, but it is Hampstead, NC. Thanks Theresa and James!

Soon... soon... it will look like this again! From Bob Place, taken last June 9th.

Beautiful female Cardinal sent in by Joyce Meyers near Spillville. She takes great pictures. You may have even seen her photos in magazines.

Another one from Joyce

Yellow Bellied Sapsucker that visited Gaile Ackerman of Cedar Falls.

Gaile found these Wild Turkeys, too.

Gaile had ten squirrels visiting her feeder. Normally they don't like to be near each other... must have been one of the cold snaps! (You can see the tenth squirrel's back in the foreground of the photo)

Gaile is fortunate enough to have one of the stop-off points of the Monarch migration. This is from last fall.

And, my favorite picture... and not because I took it. The others are better photos technically. I just love this one because it is the first Robin I have seen in Urbana. I heard one a couple of weeks ago and other people have told me they are around, but he finally showed up to my house! Spring is here!

Snow on our southern spruce. The deep snow makes the tree look even shorter than it is.

Our neighbor's junipers. They look cool covered in snow.

This is our DeGroots Spire Arborvitae. We moved him this year and he didn't like it. We need to get the snow off of him. Maybe he will feel better then.

The umpteen inches of snow on one of our junipers.

If you shoot through the window, make sure the lens is touching the glass. That way the flash won't make your photo yellow. I blame Clyde for this one. He was trying to help.

I was going for the "artistic look". It just looks like I got a branch in the way.

From Clark Elliott, taken outside of Allison on Labor Day. He said "there must have been tens of thousands of them."

From Clark Elliott. Monarchs are heading south.

Clark Elliott of Waterloo took this outside of Allison. He says the Monarchs come to the same area every year, but they hardly ever see them because they are only there for one night.

John Heckman of shell Rock took this one. He said this was in his backyard.

Also from John Heckman in Shell Rock.

Here is a blurry one of a hibiscus bud...

This is a better shot

I like this picture. Look at the hibiscus potential!

This photo makes the bud look like it has to shave! I never realized there were tiny hairs on the hibiscus flower. Easier for the bugs to hang on, I suppose.

The center of a blooming hibiscus with the sun shining from behind.

This is probably not good enough to win a ribbon at the fair, but I like the way the shadow shows up on the petal.

This guy looks like he is getting ready to go out on the town with his bow tie!

This is one of the Shasta daisies from last year.

When you get really close in, you can't always tell what the plant is. This one is...

...Astilbe!

This is...

...Veronica

What do you think this one is?

It's goldenrod!

This one turned out better than I expected...

The previous photo is the "cone" on the coneflower. We planted the coneflowers next to the Black-eyed susan to compliment each other.

This close-up of a coneflower turned out pretty good.

This is an example of a picture that I took of an annual vinca and thought it was fine, but it turns out blurry. Also an example of not having a tripod or patience.

This one turned out okay. This is my Strike it Rich rose. It smells great and it is still producing a lot of blooms. Hopefully the Japanese Beetles won't eat them all!

A nice look at why Bearded irises are called "bearded". The lighting is not the best for this picture, so I wouldn't submit this for any contests.

This is a REALLY close look at a branch on our spruce tree.

This one reminds me of a stand of trees. This is our yellow (obviously) yarrow.

A nice close-up of Russian sage.

I like the way the sun highlights the left side of this perennial geranium. I don't know what any judges would say about the "darkness" on the right, but I like this one.

I love this one. I may have to blow it up and put it on our wall. This is looking through the petals of a poppy.

An extreme close-up of....

....this yellow day lily

This is the petal of an asiatic lily. When I had this blown up on the computer and I walked into the room, I thought it was an incredible sunset.

This extreme close-up is of the more red asiatic lily in my garden.

I really like this one with all of the pollen just waiting for those bees to come by.

The petals of the lily.

This lily is loving the sun.

More pollen...

The petals with a few specks of pollen...

Ready and waiting for the insects.