The weather is still holding for us - We spent the morning sorting out what we are bringing back home – We haven’t had the cold or wet weather we expected on the trip so we are halving our cold weather gear and bringing it home with our purchases bought en-route. Glen has been working on our new table top as well.
After lunch we walked down to the Botanic Gardens and had a wander around. The gardens and park attached to it cover 125 acres and it is right in the city centre. We visited a couple of hot houses and the Diggers Club shop which is also there. It is the only one outside Victoria. I bought some snake bean seeds – my favourite bean and very hard to come by. I also bought a packet of Echinacea (Cone Flower) another favourite. They had Amazon water lilies growing, but they were so small compared to the ones in Brisbane Botanic Garden. However, in their tropical hot house, they had the largest pandanus I have ever seen. It was incredibly tall. The aerial roots were as tall as the trees on the Gold Coast.
This is the road and car parking between the Botanical Gardens and the Botanic Park.
This is the massive hot house for tropical plants – as you can see they have reached the very top of the roof line.
Spider heaven – not a single predator to get you.
The rose garden is an experimental rose garden. These are roses brought to Australia on trial to monitor their suitability for growing here, so don’t fall in love with any of them as they are not available for sale.
There were a lot of tea roses (very simple) and some really weird and ugly ones as well.
Wood Ducks were prolific and I saw one being ushered out of the kiosk kitchen. They are quite tame and taking advantage of the food and accommodation.
The trees have been here since the early 1800’s – they are massive and a lot of variety. It was impossible to be able to step back and get the full tree in without being underneath another tree.
A view of the city skyline and the Amazon Lily hot house.
A Blood Lily – I have not seen one of these before.
The original hot house from the 1830’s. They had to convert it to a desert environment as the heat and humidity was causing damage to the glass
A favourite – Cone Flower – I grew these at Kaffia Court, but the petals were larger and pinker. I bought the sunset collection of seeds which will have yellow, oranges and deep sunset colours. These flowers are a favourite with the bees.
Rainbow Lorikeets: There are only two places on the very top of the fountain. Sitting on the water outlet and next to it. This pair defended their spot from all comers and enjoyed have a bath. The fountain was about 7 metres tall.
I actually think that is a smile on the face of that lorikeet :)
The parkland and large trees make the gardens special. The flower gardens are either overgrown or bare (which could be the time of year) It is certainly a lovely retreat from the city and would be lovely cool and shady on a hot day. Adelaide certainly has beautiful parks and gardens and tree lined streets.
Great lorikeet shots!
ReplyDelete