WITH a hopefully glorious May and with June approaching, and gardens about to fully bloom, it's now time for photography enthusiasts to charge up their camera batteries, load the memory cards and head outdoors to capture what nature offers up to the lens.

Pollok Country Park offers a wealth of photographic subjects in terms of scale, variety and texture, whether your choice of location be the natural environment, cultivated gardens or less structured planting schemes. With shaded woodland, gardens, rockeries and planted tubs and baskets the opportunities for capturing colourful, interesting images are abundant.

The park gardeners and staff have been hard at work for months, planning, planting and pruning and each, if you were to ask them, would have their own favourite subject for you to photograph.

George would direct you to the rockery where delicate unassuming alpines will have you reaching into your camera bag and loading up your macro lens to get up close and personal to plants such as Sedum and Saxifraga.

The water features will provide you with interesting reflections of the taller plants, such as the ferns, and the winding shell path will lead you nicely into your subject.

Susan would suggest the formal gardens for their generous show of hyacinths and tulips and, not to be missed the library garden of Pollok House where the carefully pruned box hedging sections are populated with Polyanthus.

Take advantage of the steps here to provide you with an elevated perspective of the area's geometry and symmetry.

Or why not frame your shot with the stone archway?

Nearby, rhododendrons are in full blossom; white, yellow, pink, burnt orange, cerise and deep red.

Hazel would direct you to the woodland where, in a week or two, you will be able to capture the bluebells.

As you make your way through the shade, be alert for that momentary shaft of sunlight on an isolated area that will give your image an ethereal quality.

Remember to use a wide aperture here to make an individual flower stand out from the rest and, close down the aperture and change your position to capture the ground-covering carpet of vibrant blues and lilacs.

If you are looking to entertain the children with a trip to Jurassic Park then perhaps Pollok has some dinosaurs lurking around the pond area.......be careful.

Watch out for the ghost tree.

It can be found at ... well, we'll let you discover it for yourself.

Your time spent snapping at our unique country park will not only give you a memorable day out but also a memory card full of stunning images to keep you editing and cataloguing for the rest of the month, should it rain.