[picspam: 12] Cornwall; Kew
Jan. 12th, 2015 11:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kaberettSomewhere around the turning of the year one of the sunsets particularly caught my eye, and I wandered a little way down the lane to take pictures. The tide was out; there are sheets of waves coming up the beach, which was very smooth (the sand was very high), and on the left of the picture are the rocks that we-as-a-family call the Cat's Ears displaying rather nicely. Mullion Island doesn't look quite as much like a lion as it does from some angles, but nonetheless I think you get the idea.
Then on Sunday my housemate enthusiastically followed me around Kew, and my useless ex trailed after us poking at the Internet on his phone and occasionally saying "yes, dear, that's very nice, it's a plant" (or words to that effect). Well, and occasionally stroking the odd plant I pointed out as having particularly fuzzy foliage. <3
In the great big glasshouse, it was decided that the wrought-iron spiral staircase up to the balcony would be excellently complemented by two types of plant that grow in spirals with leaves coming off only the one side of the stem.
Two textured palm-ish leaves overlapping with the light coming through them.
This greenhouse also included a couple of banana plants with great big ropey tubular stems coming down to big heavy flowers. This one was at about waist-height for walking adults i.e. about chest-height on me; I apologise for the terrible photograph, but hey, it was fun.
At this point my housemate went off to make friends with the grasses briefly while I spent an Arbitrarily Long Time in the alpines house. There are a lot of photos of alpines upcoming. Sorry-not-sorry. This one is a pot containing some crocuses just coming into bud: rich yellow and deep purple stripes on the flowers.
Tiny hyacinth! One in full bloom; and another several with beautiful little spiralled spikes of flower-buds poking up between enclosing leaves.
In which I became very excited about some green-and-white striped hyacinthy things (think snowdrops or that one kind of tulip my mother is very excited about, if a little less cream, perhaps) in a very dense rosette of leaves.
... and then I just couldn't resist taking a photograph of a beautiful little bank of planting - several types of iris in bloom, some white narcissus-ish things, and several lovely little cushions of Small Misc.
ARBITRARILY LONG IN THE ALPINES HOUSE. This thing was apparently a... hyacinth??? That had very big fleshy leaves, one of which descended towards you and over the metal stand containing explanatory notes. Spike of green triangular flower-ish bits in the middle, behind which an ascending twisty spiral-y bit of brown branches.
And then! Orchids! A cluster of white orchid flowers.
This is a flame-coloured relative of the pink-and-purple What Even I posted a while back; I think my mother asserts they're bromeliads? Anyway, the pink-and-purple ones are currently not on display, but these are gorgeous flattish spiky flower-things fading from orange to red tips.
The great thing about the arid part of the greenhouses at the moment, right, is that all the bloody cacti and euphorbia are in flower. Including this nonsense, which had a splendid four-foot long flower spike that had gone sideways under its own weight to form a beautifully elegant arch.
... and finally, a succulent with fantastic bark striped with glossy red and some satisfyingly fat little white flowers.
Then on Sunday my housemate enthusiastically followed me around Kew, and my useless ex trailed after us poking at the Internet on his phone and occasionally saying "yes, dear, that's very nice, it's a plant" (or words to that effect). Well, and occasionally stroking the odd plant I pointed out as having particularly fuzzy foliage. <3
In the great big glasshouse, it was decided that the wrought-iron spiral staircase up to the balcony would be excellently complemented by two types of plant that grow in spirals with leaves coming off only the one side of the stem.
Two textured palm-ish leaves overlapping with the light coming through them.
This greenhouse also included a couple of banana plants with great big ropey tubular stems coming down to big heavy flowers. This one was at about waist-height for walking adults i.e. about chest-height on me; I apologise for the terrible photograph, but hey, it was fun.
At this point my housemate went off to make friends with the grasses briefly while I spent an Arbitrarily Long Time in the alpines house. There are a lot of photos of alpines upcoming. Sorry-not-sorry. This one is a pot containing some crocuses just coming into bud: rich yellow and deep purple stripes on the flowers.
Tiny hyacinth! One in full bloom; and another several with beautiful little spiralled spikes of flower-buds poking up between enclosing leaves.
In which I became very excited about some green-and-white striped hyacinthy things (think snowdrops or that one kind of tulip my mother is very excited about, if a little less cream, perhaps) in a very dense rosette of leaves.
... and then I just couldn't resist taking a photograph of a beautiful little bank of planting - several types of iris in bloom, some white narcissus-ish things, and several lovely little cushions of Small Misc.
ARBITRARILY LONG IN THE ALPINES HOUSE. This thing was apparently a... hyacinth??? That had very big fleshy leaves, one of which descended towards you and over the metal stand containing explanatory notes. Spike of green triangular flower-ish bits in the middle, behind which an ascending twisty spiral-y bit of brown branches.
And then! Orchids! A cluster of white orchid flowers.
This is a flame-coloured relative of the pink-and-purple What Even I posted a while back; I think my mother asserts they're bromeliads? Anyway, the pink-and-purple ones are currently not on display, but these are gorgeous flattish spiky flower-things fading from orange to red tips.
The great thing about the arid part of the greenhouses at the moment, right, is that all the bloody cacti and euphorbia are in flower. Including this nonsense, which had a splendid four-foot long flower spike that had gone sideways under its own weight to form a beautifully elegant arch.
... and finally, a succulent with fantastic bark striped with glossy red and some satisfyingly fat little white flowers.
(no subject)
Date: 2015-01-13 12:06 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2015-01-13 12:11 am (UTC)(The mouldering ancestral pile is... not an affectation as nicknames go, alas. It's half a mile down a single-lane grass-and-dirt track - recently upgraded so it contains less grass, per that photo! - on the outskirts of Mullion village; it's a 5-10 minute walk down to Polurrian Cove, depending on whether the current residents of my great-uncle's old house are having a conniption about getting sued if we keep using the track down through their gorse field or not...)
(no subject)
Date: 2015-01-13 12:30 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2015-01-13 01:01 am (UTC)I'm not convinced by the accessibility of that spiral staircase, but willing to give it an exception on artistic merit.
Hyacinth with big fleshy leaves clearly had input from Dali!
The final succulent looks a lot like the money tree that is all over my house - the original reached approximately a metre across before collapsing under its own mass/possibly objecting to the only spot in the house that was still big enough for it, but I potted the major branches which all took. OTOH I don't recall it ever flowering.
Now there's a proper Cornish name!
(no subject)
Date: 2015-01-13 12:55 pm (UTC)It is indeed a money tree. Kew also has a money tree of my preferred colourway (very grey-green with pink edges to the leaves) that, alas, they don't sell in the plant shop; every time I go past it I consider nicking a leaf...
(no subject)
Date: 2015-01-13 09:58 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2015-01-13 10:21 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2015-01-13 11:09 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2015-01-14 09:16 am (UTC)It was rather nice to see the crocuses. They don't grow here. And your mum is on target with the bromeliads.