Glorious Gardens 1

While we were in the UK we interspersed tours and museum visits with walks and visits to gardens. Today my post highlights two public gardens (one in Glasgow and one in London) next week my garden series will continue with two private gardens.

First there is the Glasgow Botanic Garden. Most of the flowers below were inside large glass conservatories to maintain ideal warmth and humidity: orchids, cacti and tropical plants. The day we visited the temperatures soared to the high 80's F (outside) so the temperature inside as I was photographing was quite a bit hotter than that; had I been a tropical plant I would have been quite happy but as a human photographer I was a bit warmer than I like to be.

You will notice that most of the visitors are outside on the lawns enjoying the good weather.

There was a beautiful collection of orchids

I think these are pitcher plants:

The last greenhouse I visited had a pond of koi and large statues:

Nubian Slave

Cain

King Robert of Sicily

And now on to London, where we visited Regent Park; OK not quite a garden but we saw beautiful plants and birds. Another beautiful hot day, so we walked around the lake, which was home to a variety of birds.

Heron

Greylag Goose, I think, but I also found this identified as a Pink Footed Goose

Mute Swan

Red Crested Pochard

Egyptian Goose

I know this is the second one but I loved the little pool of water on this one's back.

Baby coot (this one was on the far side of the lake, sorry not a great picture).

Coot

I thought these pigeons looked comical.

White Faced Whistling Duck

Heron

Pair of swans



Wood Pigeon

...and a litle bit of statuary to round this one out

More pictures than words today but I think I'll allow them to speak for themselves this week.

Last Saturday was the Brock House Fair, we had beautiful weather and had an excellent turnout; for volunteers such as myself though the preparation consumed a lot of my free time so I have had no time for art. I promise to get back at the "drawing board" this week.

Thank you for dropping by, Happy Whimsy Wednesday, until week .......