Sweet magnolias ... I've got them at last!

I'm nearly finished processing photos taken on my recent two-week journey to Savannah, St. Augustine, the Florida Keys and Ormond Beach. While I prepare to present some of those images here, I thought I'd first slip in a post about a surprise I came upon in my yard a few days ago.

But first, a little history.

Some 15 years ago or so, when I was still living in Indianapolis, a friend introduced me to the wonderful aroma of blooms from the magnolia tree. Since then, I'd kicked around planting of a such a bush or tree in my yard. I knew it would be risky; Indy is a borderline geographic zone for magnolias. Then when I learned that a couple who lived two doors down from me had such a tree in their backyard -- and it was thriving -- I thought maybe I'd give it a shot.

Alas, I never got around to it.

A few days after returning from the aforementioned trip South, I was in my upstairs office at home when Lee Ann called me down to look at something in the backyard. When I came outside, she pointed to a tree underneath which we had positioned a cushioned bench swing when we moved in seven months ago. The tree was loaded with gorgeous raspberry colored blooms, something neither of us had noticed since our return until just now.

It quickly occurred to us that when we had toured the property and even after we had moved in, it was the middle of summer -- long after the traditional magnolia annual bloom period -- so all this tree was showing then (and would continue to show until spring 2018) was green leaf foliage. And I wasn't that familiar with the magnolia tree foliage. The blooms, yes, but not the foliage. So it was no wonder we didn't realize what we had for the first seven months of our time here. And the irony of how we chose to situate the bench rocker right underneath it -- all in blissful ignorance ...

Lee Ann thought the blooms we were looking at were magnolias, but she had never seen blooms in this dark pink color before. I had to admit that I hadn't recalled seeing these very often myself -- most magnolias were most white with lilac or pink highlights.

But the magnolia scent was unmistakable. I went back inside to retrieve my camera and took some pictures. That's what this post is about.

Photo geek stuff: I used my Canon 6D and Tamron 28-300mm f/3.5-6.3 Di PZD VC lens equipped with a polarizing filter. I bracketed each composition for three exposures, but all photos in this post are single frame shots.