Plants – Page 5 – Journeys of Heart and Mind

Image of the day – 40

Nobody knows when rose breeding began, it may have been as far back as Greek or Roman times.

What’s in an image? Sometimes quite a lot, more than meets the eye.

I’m posting an image every day (or as often as I can). A photo, an image from the internet, a diagram or a map. Whatever takes my fancy.

While we were at the Powerscourt Estate, Donna wanted to look at the rose garden; this photo shows a really beautiful example of the flowers on view. Looking at the image now I can almost smell the fragrance in my mind!

Roses like these are not part of the natural world; they’re the work of plant breeders crossing a range of wild species and selecting for characteristics they liked. Nobody knows when rose breeding began, it may have been as far back as Greek or Roman times, but was certainly underway in medieval Europe and perhps in the middle and far east as well.

I wrote an article four years ago that includes photos of a much more natural rose. Comparing the two images emphasises how plant breeding can make huge changes (the breeders might say ‘huge improvements’) to wild forms. The same is true for animal breeding, just compare any modern breed of dog with the wild, wolf ancestor for example!

Images from our Irish holiday 2024

For convenience, here’s a list of all the Irish holiday images:

28th Jul – Welsh Botanic Garden, Robin, Fishguard
29th Jul – Wicklow Mts, Glendalough, Powerscourt, Rose, Greystones
30th Jul – Liffey, Temple Bar, St Patrick’s Cathedral
31st Jul – Newgrange, Battle of the Boyne
1st Aug – Monasterboice, Mourne, Thrift, Window
2nd Aug – Spelga Dam, Hydrangea, Pipework, Lough Neagh
3rd Aug – Coagh, Springhill, Portrush
4th Aug – Beach at Portrush
5th Aug – Giant’s Causeway, Carrick-a-Rede, Portrush

Themed image collections

The links below will take you to the first post in each collection

Cirencester, Favourites, Irish holiday 2024, Roman villa

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If you enjoyed this or found it useful, please like, comment, and share below. (If you don’t see those links, click the article’s title above the main photo and they will appear.) Send a link to friends who might enjoy the article or benefit from it – Thanks! My material is free to reuse (see conditions), but a coffee is always welcome and encourages me to write more often!

Image of the day – 39

Most of these old houses and their gardens are now enjoyed by much larger numbers of visitors than the original owners could possibly have imagined.

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What’s in an image? Sometimes quite a lot, more than meets the eye.

I’m posting an image every day (or as often as I can). A photo, an image from the internet, a diagram or a map. Whatever takes my fancy.

National Geographic rated this as the third best garden in the World. It’s Powerscourt Gardens in Wicklow, Ireland. National Geographic is right, this is a very fine garden indeed. It’s spacious, well designed, full of interesting plants and landscape features, and very well maintained. We did spot a few small weeds here and there, but not very many; keeping a garden this large will require a lot of dedicated gardeners, either volunteers or paid staff (probably both). Most of the work has to be done manually, it will not be a cheap operation!

Of course, ordinary everyday people can’t manage a huge garden like this, nor afford to build a house as large as Powerscourt. A very tiny minority of the population could build and live in this kind of luxury either then or now. And even among the very wealthy, not everyone wants to.

But time moves on, and most of these old houses and their gardens are now enjoyed by much larger numbers of visitors than the original owners could possibly have imagined. Perhaps they’d have been horrified! But I, for one, am grateful for their beautiful legacies that I can visit and enjoy.

I have a final question for you, dear reader, and for myself too. What will you leave as a legacy for future generations? And what will I leave? Why not leave your thoughts below in a comment? There are no right or wrong answers.

Images from our Irish holiday 2024

For convenience, here’s a list of all the Irish holiday images:

Themed image collections

The links below will take you to the first post in each collection

Cirencester, Favourites, Irish holiday 2024, Roman villa

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Useful? Interesting?

Image of the day – 34

With its protection, it’s been possible to nurture not just some tropical and semi-tropical plants, but entire biomes.

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What’s in an image? Sometimes quite a lot, more than meets the eye.

I’m posting an image every day (or as often as I can). A photo, an image from the internet, a diagram or a map. Whatever takes my fancy.

We enjoyed a holiday in Ireland from 28th July to 12th August and I’ll share some photos from our trip. I’ll return to more Roman villa photos later.

This first photo is from our journey out from Cirencester where we live. We took the M5 down to the Second Severn Crossing and then the M4 to its end in South Wales, stopping later at the National Botanic Garden of Wales for a light lunch and a break from driving.

The photo shows a view inside their amazing ‘Great Glasshouse’, the world’s largest single-span glasshouse. With its protection, it’s been possible to nurture not just some tropical and semi-tropical plants, but entire biomes. The exprience reminded us of Cornwall’s Eden Project. Although the Great Glasshouse is smaller, it is still very, very impressive.

If you had a greenhouse this big, what would you like to grow in it?

Images from our Irish holiday 2024

For convenience, here’s a list of all the Irish holiday images:

Themed image collections

The links below will take you to the first post in each collection

Cirencester, Favourites, Irish holiday 2024, Roman villa

< Previous | Index | Next >

Useful? Interesting?

Image of the day – 29

Tree roots probe small cracks and as they grow, heave even heavy structures aside.

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What’s in an image? Sometimes quite a lot, more than meets the eye.

I’m posting an image every day (or as often as I can). A photo, an image from the internet, a diagram or a map. Whatever takes my fancy.

Today’s image shows a piece of ground lightly covered with silver birch; but the history of this area is interesting. During the war it was an RAF airfield (RAF Riccall) with runways, brick and concrete buildings, bomb stores and more. The airfield was in used from 1944 to 1958, and today the brick structures are collapsing, the runways have cracked and are mostly covered by layers of moss, grass and other low vegetation, and the other areas have become scrubland and lightly wooded areas as shown in the photo.

This clearly illustrates how much time and maintenance effort is required to hold back the natural world from recolonising our built infrastructure. What begins with the typical grass and weeds of cultivated ground soon becomes an impenetrable mass of brambles and young trees. As they grow larger, the trees shade out the brambles, and fallen leaves cover the concrete and tarmac and accumulate as fresh soil. Tree roots probe small cracks and, as they grow, heave even heavy structures aside. It’s a fascinating process. Skipwith Common, with the old airfield on its north-western edge, is representative of Yorkshire’s lowland heath ecology.

We think our built environment is solid and secure – not so! It’s easily overwhelmed once we stop maintaining it. Look at the land around the site of Chornobyl in Ukraine for another example of the speed of wildlife return to an area substantially left alone by humans.

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Image of the day – 27

In the natural way of things, each Aloe will produce an average of one new plant, and the population will remain in balance.

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What’s in an image? Sometimes quite a lot, more than meets the eye.

I’m posting an image every day (or as often as I can). A photo, an image from the internet, a diagram or a map. Whatever takes my fancy.

Today’s picture is a close up of an Aloe aristata plant with a developing flower bud. All plants, animals, fungi, bacteria and even viruses have ways of reproducing themselves. That’s one of the defining characters of life of any kind. We can be absolutely confident that the same will be true of any life forms anywhere in the universe.

The Aloe flower bud will develop on a tall stalk and if the flowers that form are pollinated they will produce and release seeds that stand a chance of germinating and growing into new, similar, Aloe plants. In the natural way of things, each Aloe will produce an average of one new plant, and the population will remain in balance.

The only choices available to life are to survive for ever with no reproduction, or to live for a limited time and leave behind new versions to carry on the process. What life cannot do is live forever and reproduce: that would lead to overpopulation and catastrophic failure of resources. Even with reduced family sizes, the planet is no longer capable of supporting the billions of people on our planet. We face catastrophic population collapse due to lack of resources at some point unless we can reduce our population size in some other way first. That’s a matter of simple arithmetic, not a political statement or some kind of guesswork. If we don’t face and fix the issue, something else will sooner or later.

Themed image collections

The links below will take you to the first post in each collection

Cirencester, Favourites, Irish holiday 2024, Roman villa

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