National Botanic Garden of Wales .Carmarthenshire
Sept 25, 2021 15:43:38 GMT
Post by bixaorellana on Sept 25, 2021 15:43:38 GMT
Finally, finally getting back to this feast of a thread. Lugg, of all the garden threads on anyport, I have to say that this has to be the most interesting on a number of levels, besides being an extravaganza of gorgeous photographs.
Thanks for the opening links. The list of awards in the official site is impressive, but your report shows how richly deserved they are. Also, the link you include in the first post of reply #19 is fascinating, not only for the political/commercial history, but also the details about architecture, landscaping, and gardening. I was horrified to read that the water features were drained in the 1930s, but relieved to know that they have been restored. I still want to know how underground heating was achieved, though.
I loved the geological details at the beginning, and just wallowed in your photographs leading up to the maps.
[you wrote:] Anyway I was blown away by the dramatic scenes that unfolded as we walked up the hill .. sometimes grey skies are the best maybe ?
Yes, indeed -- especially when so perfectly captured as you did in your pictures.
I recently read The Winter King by Bernard Cornwell and was stunned by how your pictures brought my imagining of that landscape to life.
And yes -- the maps are helpful. That place is big!
Something that amazed me throughout the report is that even when human intervention in the form of paths, walls, or buildings is completely on view, somehow it all looks natural and though it was meant to be. Really, it's all a brilliantly artistic melding of nature and human creation.
And your bird pictures!!! Along with everyone else, I'm knocked out by Midas and his look-alike handler, but my favorites are the two of birds in flight right above where you say But the star of the show for me was Midas , A Golden Eagle ...
My scanty IDs of the pictures in Reply #21:
Photo 1 is the flower stalk of an Agave and photo 2 shows thistles.
I see a pink double hibiscus -- maybe because of a difference in my monitor & Bjd's. There is a red hibiscus to the left of the bird's nest fern (Asplenium nidus) in the 7th picture.. That one is Hibiscus schizopetalus.
Picture 8 starts a whole series of plants in the Bromeliad family, with Tillandsia on the right side of picture 9.
Bjd already identified the orange canna in photo 10 and Lugg captured the plant tag on a showy bromeliad and on the squirrel-foot fern (Davallia).
The upright yellow flowers just above Lugg's wonderful portraits of the Cosmos are Centaurea macrocephala, which I had to look up because the ID was at the far edge of my consciousness, just out of reach.
The Japanese garden was a source of frustration. Because my internet name is already Bixa orellana, I can't use the absolutely marvelous Leptinella squalida ~ surely the Moonbeam McSwine of plant names!
Okay, I'll stop now, but thank you a million times for this excellent report.
Thanks for the opening links. The list of awards in the official site is impressive, but your report shows how richly deserved they are. Also, the link you include in the first post of reply #19 is fascinating, not only for the political/commercial history, but also the details about architecture, landscaping, and gardening. I was horrified to read that the water features were drained in the 1930s, but relieved to know that they have been restored. I still want to know how underground heating was achieved, though.
I loved the geological details at the beginning, and just wallowed in your photographs leading up to the maps.
[you wrote:] Anyway I was blown away by the dramatic scenes that unfolded as we walked up the hill .. sometimes grey skies are the best maybe ?
Yes, indeed -- especially when so perfectly captured as you did in your pictures.
I recently read The Winter King by Bernard Cornwell and was stunned by how your pictures brought my imagining of that landscape to life.
And yes -- the maps are helpful. That place is big!
Something that amazed me throughout the report is that even when human intervention in the form of paths, walls, or buildings is completely on view, somehow it all looks natural and though it was meant to be. Really, it's all a brilliantly artistic melding of nature and human creation.
And your bird pictures!!! Along with everyone else, I'm knocked out by Midas and his look-alike handler, but my favorites are the two of birds in flight right above where you say But the star of the show for me was Midas , A Golden Eagle ...
My scanty IDs of the pictures in Reply #21:
Photo 1 is the flower stalk of an Agave and photo 2 shows thistles.
I see a pink double hibiscus -- maybe because of a difference in my monitor & Bjd's. There is a red hibiscus to the left of the bird's nest fern (Asplenium nidus) in the 7th picture.. That one is Hibiscus schizopetalus.
Picture 8 starts a whole series of plants in the Bromeliad family, with Tillandsia on the right side of picture 9.
Bjd already identified the orange canna in photo 10 and Lugg captured the plant tag on a showy bromeliad and on the squirrel-foot fern (Davallia).
The upright yellow flowers just above Lugg's wonderful portraits of the Cosmos are Centaurea macrocephala, which I had to look up because the ID was at the far edge of my consciousness, just out of reach.
The Japanese garden was a source of frustration. Because my internet name is already Bixa orellana, I can't use the absolutely marvelous Leptinella squalida ~ surely the Moonbeam McSwine of plant names!
Okay, I'll stop now, but thank you a million times for this excellent report.