botanical colours galore

My Walk this Week 159 – Botanical Beauty

My walk this week looks and listens to some botanical beauty in Swansea’s Singleton Park. It is late Spring and new arrangements have been made in the formal garden and the colours abound in the less formal areas.

Swansea Botanic Gardens

Swansea Botanic Gardens

The hot-house is exotic with the blooming of enormous bright flowers and the sound of running water accompanies the humidity in one section while fading away in the cactus house. The twisting paths both inside and out give a sense of exploration and discovery as you round a corner or enter a “tunnel” and find another colourful viewpoint or vista.

Swansea Botanic Soundscape

Sitting in the peacefulness of the arranged beds, listening to the birds and the gentle hoeing of the gardeners, Continue reading

golden yellow

Floral Findings 2 – Golden Yellow at Cally

A visit to Cally Gardens near Gatehouse of Fleet is always a must for us when in Scotland. We were concerned for it last year after the owner, Michael Wickenden, died whilst flower hunting in Myanmar, but the place has been taken over by a like minded person who knew Michael and is developing the place in keeping with his philosophy.

Cally Gardens

It is probably the golden yellow flower that is most striking in these photos but I particularly like the fall of light and shade in the image above as well.

I cannot name the few plants I have picked out below but they are certainly different to the wildflowers of Britain presented in my previous post. For me, I do not need to know the names of plants orContinue reading

NBGW and Reviewing The Week 44

This is the smallest of the three lakes at the National Botanic Garden of Wales (NBGW). It is the one that welcomes you along with the ducks when you arrive and makes for a beautiful and relaxing memory to depart with along with all the amazing scenery, flowers and plants, architecture, art, science and history of the place and of course, walks. It is well worth repeated visits and having watched it develop over these past fifteen years or so, I look forward to a lot more growth in the future.

Click the first in the block of images below to view the week’s photos in sequence.

Garden of Wales entrance lake

Flowers in the Great Glass House

However often we go for a walk at the Botanic Garden of Wales (NBGW), we cannot miss out one of its main features – the Great Glass House. The architecture itself is interesting enough on its own, but the pleasure of walking around its different planting zones cannot be matched. It is also impossible not to take photos of at least some of the exotic flowers. Many, many others have done this – these are some of mine.

Flower in the Great Glass House

NBGW-12

NBGW-13

NBGW-14

NBGW-15

Full Cycle – Amaryllis

Another of our flowers that stunned us this year was our Amaryllis. I should have used my DSLR Canon 550D but instead, for convenience, I used my iPhone.

Amarylis-1

Amaryllis

Amaryllis

Amaryllis

Amaryllis

Amaryllis

Amaryllis

Amaryllis

Amaryllis

Amaryllis

Plants in the Glasshouse – Absorbed in iPhonography

I was absorbed in taking the photos and absorbed by the look of the plants but I made a mistake, one I make too often! I forgot to get all the information I would want about the things I was photographing – information I would want when writing this post.

I would like to be able to tell you what these fascinating and exotic plants are but all I can say is that they are in the Great Glasshouse in the National Botanic Garden of Wales. I can also tell you that the first photograph was taken in JPEG format (see yesterdays post for info on formats), and the second in TIFF.

Unfortunately that probably doesn’t give you information that you really want whether you are interested in photography or not, so I must apologise for the omission of this information and ask if anyone knows what they are, to post it in the comments. Thank you.

NBGW

NBGW

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