Spring in the UK means bluebells will start showing up. I will come back to this topic in another post but, when we went to Farm Shop in Leckford , the road in came through some trees which had a carpet of bluebells beneath them. While Nancy was wandering around the shop, I did grab the camera and head along the road to get some bluebell shots. This was a nice start to the season but there will be more to come.
There are some open areas in Winnall’s Moor Nature Reserve that have reeds that grow quite high. It seems that the wind bows across the marshes in a consistent direction. The reeds seem to bend over with the wind but then grow back upwards resulting in a curve to their stems. They are all aligned while showing the same curvature and they look really interesting.
The Bishop of Winchester has an official residence close to the cathedral. It seems like a pretty nice house to have in the centre of the city but the thing that caught my eye on the Sunday morning when I was passing was the flowers sprouting from the lawn. A combination of snowdrops and crocuses made the place feel rather nice, so I got the camera low to the ground to get them to be the main part of the shot.
While walking through Richmond, we came along a street of older houses in what seemed like quite a desirable neighborhood. The dominant feature of most of these houses was the preponderance of wisteria on their frontages. Some of the plants were confined to one house while others seemed to span whatever property that they felt like. The purple blooms were most impressive, and it seemed like they were competing to see which house could be more purple than the next. I don’t know how long wisteria blooms for so did we get lucky with our timing, or could we have been there at a wider range of times?
On our last full day in the UK on our most recent trip, we met up with family and the Royal Horticultural Society’s grounds at Wisley. It has been quite a long time since we were last there and I only had some limited memories of the place. They were good memories, but I clearly hadn’t seen as much of the place as I could have. The old house is the first thing you see when you arrive and I’m glad that it is still there since it provides a nice introduction, even if it isn’t terribly relevant to the average visitor these days.
They have built a really nice gift shop and café/restaurant complex, and we did make good use of that on our visit. Then we headed into the gardens. They are just as nice as you would expect from an organization like the RHS. We went through one of the glasshouses and then climbed the hill to the cunningly named Hilltop building. The grounds around it are nice but they also have a rooftop area which provides a great view across the grounds. I think if I had been alone and with more time, I might have gone further afield in the grounds, but that day was not the day to do so. I did see what looked like a nice avenue on the map so wandered up through the trees to a very scenic view down back towards the main area.
Wisley is a lovely spot. I would highly recommend it if you like gardens and plants or even if you just want somewhere pleasant to wander after a decent lunch. I suspect we will make a return visit if we have a chance for more time when back in the UK.
The walk around the block was one of the things were were allowed to do when shelter in place took effect. This started at a good time for the local flora. As we walked up the hill near the house, we could see across to the grounds of a large plot near the street. They had a row of bushes that were all in flower providing a beautiful burst of color. I was carrying the small M6 but took a sequence of shots to stitch together. I also include a few other shots of the flowering we saw walking around.
Spheres visits have shown up in a bunch of posts. When my sister visited last year, I took a different approach to my photos and focused a lot more on the weird and wonderful plants that are growing within the Spheres. Here is a selection of fascinating looking plants that I was taking a look at. Nature certainly produces some amazing shapes.
I am regularly fascinated by the way in which a fallen tree will be the source of food for new plants. The decaying wood releases nutrients and provides a great base for the next generation. Of course, as it decays further, the base may gradually disappear from under them. In the interim, though, any number of plants will sprout and develop. I came across one such log in Meerkerk Gardens. It seemed to be home to any number of new plants (and that ignores the insect species that were, no doubt, hard at work on its surface).
When Chris and Sam visited, Sam had a list of things she wanted to do. I have to admit that one of those things I had no idea existed until she mentioned it. Having been here eighteen months and also having been through the area involved a couple of times, this was a bit embarrassing. The subject is the Amazon Spheres. Amazon seems to control a lot of territory in Seattle these days but, while most of this is in traditional office space, the Spheres are something different.
They are an environmental space that encompasses a wide range of plant life. It is designed to be used by employees as they have meetings or not to work alone for a while. They can relax in these spaces. At the weekends, though, it is sometimes made available for the public to visit for free. You just have to book a slot. We didn’t know about this when Sam and Chris were here so we only saw them from the outside. However, we did then know a little more and were able to plan a visit when Tom and Lenore came to stay.
The interior of the Spheres is something that you can guess at when you are looking from outside but being inside is totally amazing. The huge diversity of plant types throughout the space is incredible. The engineering of the spheres themselves and of the stairs and walkways within are very cool to someone with that sort of background like me. The ability to sustain the plants and keep them fed and watered is impressive and every turn takes you to something new and interesting. Couple that with some cool workspaces for the staff to use for meetings and you have a unique building complex. I would happily go back there on another occasion just to hang out and relax while possibly photographing more of the plants. I could probably have multiple posts of shots from this place but I shall make do with a combination of architectural shots and some of the plants for now. If you are planning on coming to Seattle, try and time it to coincide with one of the open weekends and give yourself enough time.
Point Defiance Park had a rose garden that seemed worth a visit. Walking in to the garden I was immediately struck by the fragrance of the flowers. Some roses are a lot more fragrant than others but, stick enough of them together and you are going to get a strong smell. Roses are interesting in how many varieties that they come in. Some look exactly like you might imagine a rose while others are very different in shape.
The garden was laid out around a central point with rows of blooms curving around the middle. They were attracting human and insect visitors in large quantities. Some blooms seemed to be quite persistent while others looked like they reached their peak before quickly wilting and being replaced by another bloom.
We had entered the garden from one side but on the other was a more structured entrance which took you through an arch covered in multiple blooms. The concentration of flowers made it visually striking. Also, having the light coming through from above meant that the flowers were backlit which made for a nice look and a filtered color of light inside the tunnel. Hardly a person passed without taking their own photo.
