purple crocus
Terri Webster Schrandt

The Flower Hour #17: An Edited Journey of a #Crocus

Here in Northeastern Washington, we’re another six weeks away from seeing crocus flowers in bloom. Here’s what bloomed last year in my garden!

“The crocus reminds us that no matter how harsh the winter, spring always returns.”
– Katrina Meyer

purple crocus
Purple Crocus

Alongside my passion for photography, I enjoy using filters and coloring apps, particularly Color Planet. This paint-by-number “game” allows me to color and save digital images. Here is one I colored and saved. It is meant to have an “oil-painting” quality.

graphic crocus

Now that AI is available as a tool for editing, creating, etc., I used the WordPress image block to create an AI-generated version of the Color Planet image. It created very realistic-looking flowers and grass.

purple forest crocus
AI-Generated from Color Planet image

Here’s hoping the purple and white ones emerge late next month.

white crocus

Please note that you don’t have to share an edited flower or a crocus for this week’s Flower Hour.

New flower images are welcomed, and archived images are encouraged.

For the Flower Hour, share your images of flowers, gardens, fields of flowers, seasonal leaves and plants, fungus, algae, cacti, blossoms, berries, and wildflowers. Bouquets and silk/faux flowers are welcome.

Remember, there are no specific themes for the Flower Hour, but please use your own photography. And you have all week to link to this post.

New to The Flower Hour photo challenge? Please check out my page for more information! I encourage “double-dipping” with other blog challenges if you do not want to create a separate post.

“White and purple crocuses are always the first to burst through Winter’s crusty, frozen soil as its lonely reign is overthrown by a brave new season.” – Graham Russell

floral signature

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96 comments

  26. We had a one-day Spring thaw today … 45 degrees. Woo hoo! I hope we have turned a corner. I need to see if the Snow Drops pop up now in the neighborhood. That’s amazing what you can do with AI for creating paintings from photos … hmm, less messy than painting. I have to return to painting. I had so many photos taken last year to go through that I’ve been sorting through them since January and getting some reading done.

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      • Our heatwave was short-lived, but the “heat” and sunshine return on Friday through Sunday. I’m excited for that as I may get my Great Backyard Birdwatch done somewhere besides my backyard. Yes, I went from Amethyst to Pearl as I had a double XP for 30 minutes which put me over the top and at #1 briefly. 🙂 I am still relegated to “stories” though. Oh well. I am going to try with Duck Duck Go – I had to switch to them to see YouTube videos or sign up with YouTube and pay.

        Here is my flower post for Flower Hour. A bee in the blooms:

        Does all this yellow mellow you out? #Wordless Wednesday #Bumblebee in the Goldenrod

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      • We’ve had two sunny days in a row now that the sun is at a higher angle to burn off the fog. We had flocks of birds in the yard today, so much fun.

        Does your local library have Mango Languages? It’s free to access. If our rural area does, I would bet yours does and you could continue learn French that way. I’ve actually had the free Duolingo max since yesterday, and I can converse with Lily on the “phone.” After 6 years of German, speaking is getting better. Keep at the French, its good for your brain!

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      • We had a sunny day today but only in the 20s, but I went to the Park for the first time since February 1st as we had the snow/ice storm after that. I waited until later in the day but the walking path was horribly icy and so I had to walk in the snow. Hopefully our warm temps this upcoming four or five days will help … 40s, almost to 50s to get rid of all of it.

        Thank you for the tip about Mango Languages and I just Googled and yes our library has it and you only need a library card which I have had for a while, unless they have changed card formats. There is a Facebook group for Duolingo – French. They probably have one for German too. People troubleshoot to ask why their answer or translation was wrong or other similar questions and group members discussed their live interaction with Lily and said she disconnected them sometimes … was she polite or her usual sullen self? Funny you said about French being good for the brain. I just heard a story on the CBS national radio news yesterday about how beneficial reading is for the brain and they mentioned another good brain-training exercise was taking a foreign language.

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      • This time I’m grateful for the weather whiplash. We have nice weather until Tuesday night … rain versus freezing rain that night, so I hope we stay mild. I hope you have easy going for your travels after you showed us pics of the snow on the highway as you’ve got the RV … it can’t be easy doing that.

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    • Thank you, Janis! You’re right! I checked today and the green shoots have emerged. It was 50 here today, way too warm. We’re heading south in two weeks and I’m afraid I’ll miss them!

      I’ll PM you soon with our SD dates.

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  45. Your images and words are great and inspiring as we impatiently await a thaw (never mind spring blossoms!). I love the AI image and (very red-faced) didn’t even know that technology was available on WordPress so thank you! pp

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