The Pines Garden

Leaving poor flooded Gloucestershire behind for a while (and counting my blessings for living where I do, untouched by floodwater, loss of electricty or tap water supply) I enjoyed our first decent summer week down in Kent.

Herewith a few photos from our visit to the Pines Garden in St. Margaret's. (webpage link in the title) We'd always wondered what the Pines was like.
Now we know: very pleasant.

This building was particularly interesting. It is "the Pines Calyx" and very eco-friendly made from compacted chalk dug out on-site. The roof is very "green" too! Solar panel at the back. Marvellous.

The Calyx is used for meetings and conferences.

This statue of Sir Winston (not life size!) we assume graces the gardens in respect of his Lord Warden of the Cinque Port days, as well as his links with Kent via Chartwell. Perhaps if I read the website properly there maybe an explanation. Or you could look yourself....there are more photos from around the whole garden than I took anyway, so I'd recommend a look at the webpages, or go and the place itself even!!

Leaving St. Margarets once more, back onto the familiar path to Langdon.

And for those of you who ever held the slightest doubt in your mind as to whether France is really visible from Dover, here is a photo to prove it!!! A particularly clear view today, admittedly.

I'd like to call this photo "See France, sea, France, Sea France" although I cannot tell a lie, the ferry is in fact P&O.......haaaahaaaaahaaaa!!!!!!!!

p.s. Next photo, different day, in Thanet. More lovely blue sky above scenic little Joss Bay outside Broadstairs: and a rather splendid wave cut platform etc. Don't you think??

To Berkley Castle at last.

Between doorways ancient...
and less than ancient.... lie the fascinating interior of Berkley Castle, packed with history. I'm just amazed I left it
so long before I made a visit!

Nice garden too!

And a butterfly house!

Lydford Gorge

After a dreadfully wet day in Falmouth (and down a tin mine to escape the rain!!) I headed homewards from my Eden trip, stopping en route to visit another botanists paradise: Lydford Gorge near Okehampton, on the northern edge of Dartmoor (the blog title links to National Trust page about it).

Not surprisingly, after all the rain there was a lot of water around.......

Great news for the mosses, liverworts and ferns....

and bringing some little streamlets a lease of life they might not have had in a summer like last year (remember the heatwave....? http://carter-in-gloucester.blogspot.com/2006_07_01_archive.html)

But the gorge wasn't gouged by little trickles....

At the southern end of the gorge is this spectacle....

A truly lovely spot.

But note: not even this torrent made the gorge, that was the combined effort of the Lyd and Burn, carving through rock like a knife through butter creating precipitous slopes where oak woodlands cling beautifully....

and thundering through the narrow confines of the descent from the Devil's Cauldron.

Its truly a dark, damp, noisy hell-hole. Truly Wicked!!( in both senses!)........but above: oh so green!!!

After the noise of the Cauldron a short walk further up the valley brings you to Tucker's Pool, where brown trout swim, and (though it might have tempted me on a hotter day, were that allowed!) I did not. Afteral, I had just seen what was down stream. This was the water's calm-before-the-storm moment and I left the waters, and trout, in peace.

I went and had a cream tea instead!!!!!!

Eden Project: Tropical Biome

The Tropical Biome is great!!! Not quite like walking in a real tropical rain-forest but a wonderfully good showcase of some of the wonderful richness of plants from those parts.

I loved the way natural shapes and the man-made structure of the Biome roof blend together.

Another appealling feature.....natural space and echoes of traditional cultures responses to it....

here some African wood-spirits

and here some wall painted images by Peruvian vegetalistas (shamanic herbalists)
Then there are is an exploration of the way we use plants......sugar cane....

cocoa (mmm). Interesting to see the cocoa pods growing from the stem....

(and fun to read the story of how cocoa conquered the world from the "mayeux tapestry" painted onto the retaining walls around the cocoa bushes!)
coconuts!

The tropical scene would be incomplete without water, but natural springs in the old clay pit

provide a plentiful supply for that........

So there we have it. That's (most of) my photos from the Eden Project. One more area also kept me interested: "the Core" where all kinds of installations and imaginative displays are aimed at

conveying issues of environmental importance regarding climate change, poverty, excessive wastefulness etc etc. And in case you know feel you've vicariously seen it all here and now need not go yourself:

A) Don't be daft....GO!!!!!!!!

B) There are plans for another indoor Biome for showcasing desert envronments, so its an on-going project, changing all the time, not least with the changing flowering seasons etc.