Tag Archives: plants

Harcourt Arboretum

Oxford University has a botanical garden in the centre of the city, but it also has an arboretum out in the country. Is it called the Harcourt Arboretum. We decided to check it out one weekend in the summer. The summer in the UK was pretty toasty so we were wondering about the wisdom of this but it proved to be fine. When we first arrived, one of the team advised that the meadow areas get very warm in the afternoon so we might be best to start there. We followed this advice.

The meadows were very peaceful but were already getting rather warm. I suspect, if we had got there much later, we would have cut short our time there. Because there hadn’t been any rain for ages, the meadows were quite parched. Not much in the way of meadow flowers with the grasses rather brown. It would be interesting to see what it looks like in the spring when the moisture content is higher.

After the meadows, we headed into the wooded areas. Lots of paths crisis-cross the woods and the map that they provide was not totally representative of the layout, but we did get ourselves on track after a couple of diversions! This was by far the nicer part of the arboretum for us. The cooler conditions in amongst the trees definitely helped but the variety of trees was very interesting. There was a time in the UK when wealthy individuals sponsored expeditions around the world to collect samples of plants and trees. Consequently, UK arboretums are filled with examples of flora from all manner of places. This is no exception. The last section we came through was probably the nicest part from our point of view. That was a good way to end the visit.

Snowdrops Alongside My Ride

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The weather has not been great for cycling during the winter with it being wet. I have ended up riding the trainer indoors to try and keep in some shape. I did get one Sunday when it wasn’t raining but looked like it might. I decided to head out irrespective of the chance of it getting damp. I got lucky and, while it did drizzle occasionally, it was actually pretty dry. As I rode through the country lanes, there were loads of snowdrops along the side of the road and in the trees just off the road. I mostly rode on by but did stop on a couple of occasions to take some photos. Here they are.

Hunting More Bluebells at Hinton Ampner

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We took a walk through the area around Hinton Ampner a few months ago. This was in the spring and was a time when the bluebells were at their peak. There is a footpath around the grounds that takes you through a couple of areas where the bluebells are at their best and there is little chance that you will be alone on this walk if it is a nice weekend. Even so, it did not feel like we were somewhere busy as we took the paths.

The focus for the flowers was when we entered Joan’s Acre Wood. The conditions here are clearly ideal for bluebells and we soon found ourselves transitioning from normal woodland flooring to a sea of blue. It is hard to get an image that really conveys just how much the flowers take over your senses. The blue is intense and contrasts starkly with the green of everything else. In person this is much starker. Hopefully some of these shots will give some sort of impression of what it was like. We were surrounded by bluebells and quite blown away by it.

Bluebells Are Starting

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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.

Wind Blown Growth

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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.

Spring Flowers at the Bishop’s Place

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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.

How Much Purple is There on These Houses?

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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?

RHS Wisley

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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.

Blossom in the Neighborhood

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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.

Back to the Spheres

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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.