This was my first visit to the Oxford Botanic Gardens, hearing that Emsworth Horticultural Society had organised a visit, I asked if I could tag along with one of their tours.
Their website gives an idea of the age of the place:
'The Botanic Garden was founded in 1621. Its mission is to share the scientific wonder and importance of plants with the world. Over the past four centuries the Garden has been committed to educating as many people as possible about the importance of plants, to help conserve plants around the world, and to support teaching and research within the University and beyond.
Visit inspiring herbaceous borders, glasshouses that take you around the World or simply relax in the oldest Botanic Garden in Britain. The Botanic Garden is the most compact, yet diverse collection of plants in the World right in the heart of the city centre and is open throughout the year for you to visit and enjoy.'
It's true, it's a wonderful place to visit. We were shown round by a highly knowledgeable guide who gave us some very interesting botanical details about some of the trees, and other plants.
The arrangement of pots at the entrance gave a good idea of the delights awaiting us inside:
Our guide talking about the importance of the tree behind her
from there we could see the lovely buildings beside the gardens
As you'd expect, there are some lovely features like fountains
The tree below is rather wonderful, it's Paulownia tomentosa also called the foxglove tree because of the shape of its flowers, this one is slowly dying and will be replaced by another one nearby when this one is felled
The Zinnias in the autumn border were glorious
The plant below was a beautiful Salvia with leaves joined around the stem
Rather a lovely ram inspired stone ornament
and The Merton Borders sown in 2011 looking fabulous
The information board below and the website link above explain about the borders
The Herbaceous Border looked fabulous, it was amazing how tall some of the plants had grown at the back of the border
here's a close up of the plants with no soil in evidence at all!
More Zinnias
After the tour, we went to have lunch and then had a look round Magdalen College, beautiful buildings with glorious gardens
Here Hydrangea limelight was being used to good effect
It wasn't possible to walk along the border below, but it looked good
we could walk along the end of the bed
Isn't this building at Magdalen College glorious? We then went back to ahve a last wander round the gardens, starting at the conservatory where there were some large Fuchsias and Pelargoniums, the one below is called 'Checkerboard'
There were lots of terracotta pots planted with Gaura, grasses and Salvia
Another fab urn
Back to the lilypond, the first coloured water lilies were bred here.
The combination of colours in the autumn border was splendid, here blue/purple of Salvia Amistad and an orange Zinnia looked amazing.
Their website gives an idea of the age of the place:
'The Botanic Garden was founded in 1621. Its mission is to share the scientific wonder and importance of plants with the world. Over the past four centuries the Garden has been committed to educating as many people as possible about the importance of plants, to help conserve plants around the world, and to support teaching and research within the University and beyond.
Visit inspiring herbaceous borders, glasshouses that take you around the World or simply relax in the oldest Botanic Garden in Britain. The Botanic Garden is the most compact, yet diverse collection of plants in the World right in the heart of the city centre and is open throughout the year for you to visit and enjoy.'
It's true, it's a wonderful place to visit. We were shown round by a highly knowledgeable guide who gave us some very interesting botanical details about some of the trees, and other plants.
The arrangement of pots at the entrance gave a good idea of the delights awaiting us inside:
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