Photos.

It's Springtime! - Part 1: Cambridge Botanic Garden

Hello again all. I have been very neglectful of this blog lately. However, I now have several new sets of pictures and I promise I will be putting them all up here soon. To start us off here are some photos from the Cambridge Botanic Garden. It was quite a few weeks ago that we went, so the spring flowers were still just starting to come out. The definite highlight was their winter garden, which is designed using plants that are colourful in (surprise!) the winter. There were a lot of evergreen species, as well as plants with brightly coloured or interestingly textured bark. There were also species that flower in the winter (or at least very early in the spring). So for those of you in Canada waiting for spring to start properly, here are some flowers to keep you cheerful in the meantime.

Winter Aconites:


Green Hellebore:


In the winter garden: heather, dogwood and evergreens creating lots of contrast:

A purple theme with more heather, hellebores, and snowdrops:

More winter aconite and snowdrops under silver-stemmed bramble:


One of the best plants anywhere for texture; the birch tree:

The moss growing on the branches of the Viburnum contrasted really well with its pale pink flowers.


So that was a brief tour of the winter garden. Most other things outside weren't really ready for spring yet, but we did have a look in the greenhouses. Probably the most interesting thing in there was the collection of "useful" plants.
For those of you who have never seen cotton on the plant before:

And also, one of my personal favourite plants... Coffee!


Stay tuned... springtime part 2 involves animals!

posted by Sian at 5:50 PM