My walk this week was a spur of the moment visit to the National Botanic Garden of Wales – worthwhile for the thick growth inside and out at this time of year.
The lakeside flowers, kitchen garden and double walled garden were blooming well and if I could only present the scents as well as the sights and sounds, the sensory picture would be almost complete.Continue reading
My walk this week is at the National Botanic Garden of Wales where there was some weathering they could not control. Outside the Great Glasshouse the sun and rain, heat and cold have taken their toll on this metal plant label and the paint has cracked and peeled into a most interesting, map-like pattern.
Inside the Great Glasshouse they can and do control the weather conditions for the different parts of the world represented there. So while there are times of year when everything in there seems so busy with growth, there are always fantastic colours, patterns and textures to enjoy whatever the time of year.Continue reading
Near the end of my walk this week we approached the double walled kitchen garden of the National Botanic Garden of Wales and as we walked through it towards the hothouse and the butterflies, the rain began to fall. Not too heavy at first so I was able to get a couple more photos before going inside, but while we enjoyed looking at the few large butterflies fluttering around at this time of year, the rain really started coming down and the noise of stair rods hitting the glass roof was noticeable to say the least.
So we took more time in the hothouse than perhaps we might have done but our wait for the rain to subside was futile and we eventually put up our hoods and ventured out towards the entrance and car park. The ducks seemed happy enough!
The sound clip below does not relate to this and I realise in writing this that my habit of posting a soundscape at the end of the week has a flaw. If I only have a sound clip rather than an edited soundscape, then the sound will only be from one particular part of my walk and give no sense of progression or change of environment or conditions. So the clip below should have been posted at the beginning of the week when we were inside the Great Glass House (so I have posted it there now as well as below). It was busy with people and birds all enjoying Mothers Day – mothers perhaps because it was Mothers day and a visit to the NBGW on what was a nice day at the time included a craft fair and the birds because their were plenty of crumbs to be had around the cafe area.
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As we came out of the Great Glass House at the National Botanic Garden of Wales on my walk this week, I looked at the impending weather and took a couple of shots. I had noticed the family in the middle ground but only realised the symmetry of the children running away from each other as part of a game after I had taken the photo.
Those dark clouds did catch up with us but not at this point in our walk when I was still interested in the growth andContinue reading
My walk this week returns to the National Botanic Garden of Wales. It was Mother’s Day here in the UK and we took the opportunity of our membership to visit at a time when so many plants and flowers are getting ready for growth.
We can see the plants in our own garden getting ready for growth of course, but we do not have a team of volunteer gardeners and professionals attending to it and neither do we have the wonderful range of native andContinue reading
The light was diminishing on my walk this week at the NBGW but the late afternoon still revealed some good views and wonderful details. One of my particular favourites in this respect was the Witch Hazel. The Botanic Garden of Wales has many of these and at this time of year they are blossoming with their beautifully coloured and wacky flowers – the colours make me think of the cocktail, Tequila Sunrise!
There was also a crooked oak tree that looked as though it was using one of its own fallen branches as a crooked walking stick to hold itself up. It reminded me of this old rhyme:Continue reading
The attractively designed benches situated along my walk this week at the National Botanic Garden of Wales (NBGW) are ideal facilities for looking at and listening to the surrounding landscape.
At the moment I am focusing on the looking rather than the listening. It wasn’t actually raining on the walk but the ground was very wet from recent weather . . . as were the seats. Everything in fact, looked Continue reading
My walk this week is from the National Botanic Garden of Wales (NBGW), though it turned out not to be the walk we had expected as the Pont Felin Gat woodland was closed off to the public for clearance / restoration work. The images show one of the existing lakes in the gardens as well as the site of another lake from the past. This is being restored but in the meantime the landscape of tree stumps creates some fascinating patterns, textures and colours.
So we followed the “blue” walk instead and climbed past old farm buildings which also look in need of restoration. Again, the colours, patterns and textures revealedContinue reading