Sunday, March 11, 2007

11 March: The Botanic Garden

There was an e-mail from the Botanic Garden. So we went to have a look. In the hot-house there were flowers on the Strongylodon Macrobotrys.


Someone has sensibly called it the Jade Vine. That is in the wet part of the hot-house. In the dry part are lots of cactuses. This one was a particularly interesting pattern -


Sorry, I forgot to read the label.

Strolling round the Garden, we saw tubs full of crocuses and irises; daffodils are beginning to open; the first cherry blossom is out; the Hebridean sheep have been joined by some Manx sheep (though we saw them only on a notice); primroses are flowering on a bank behind the still-dormant gunnera, and the flowers on one of the rhododendrons were actually fading.

Returning to the cafe - excellent coffee and food, plus an exhibition of water-colour paintings - we spotted a few purple crocuses under a tree -


And the colour and texture both came out in the photo. DH took a photo too -

6 comments:

herhimnbryn said...

Hallo, here from Not dead yet blog.
Isn't that jade vine just glorious...I want one and I want it now!!!
The Cacti look as though some one has got out an icing piping bag and patiently piped them into the pot. And how I miss the crocus. Haven't seen them here in Oz.

Thankyou for taking me around the botanic gardens with you.

Anonymous said...

Isn't the humidity in the hothouse a problem for cameras?

Perhaps yours is waterproof.

stitchwort said...

Hello herhimnbryn, and thank you. The jade vine was right up in the top of the hot-house, so I think it may have special needs.

Hello anon - we weren't in there all that long, and it wasn't really really steamy.

Rog said...

Nice Purples...very vibrant.

It's kind of the Botanic Garden to send you an email. We just get Nigerian Businessmen, Share Tippers and Banks asking for password checks here.

stitchwort said...

Hi murph - we were both pleased with our crocus photos.

We subscribe to the e-mail list, and we have a very effective spam filter.

(Have I missed a pun here somewhere?)

Lucy said...

Crocii are yum!