Durham: Botanic Garden

My project while Bill teaches class is to paint a series of watercolors based on pictures I have taken of flowers. I am in serious need of brilliant blue and purple flowers since the pictures I have are not to my liking. Because the Botanic Garden is literally in my backyard here at Collingwood College, I decided to visit it to see if I could find some blue and purple flowers. While it has a few flowers, it is not like Fayetteville's Botanical Garden. Instead, it has that Sherwood-y Forest feel to it, in part due to the hilly topography and the well-established trees.  Here are some pictures from my visit today.

There is a greenhouse that contains both desert and tropical plants. I liked the license plate in this shot.

I have been wondering what all of these black-leafed flowers are. This is a dahlia Bishop of Canterbury. There are other dahlia-Bishop-of plants, including Dover and York. Dover's petals are white, York's yellow, and so forth.

This gives you an idea of the vistas. On my walk I saw sheep, a goat and a bunny, but that particular meadow was closed off to the public.

Bark on a birch tree.

This was taken in the bamboo garden.

Here is one of the sweeping hillsides.

A big old tree.

This piece of sculpture is entitled the "Foxglove Sculpture." I don't know why.

I wish my garden path looked this lush.

The tree in the center appeared to be a dogwood. Spring arrives later here than at home.

Elephant ears?

Wild flowers.

For 4 GBP it was a delightful way to spend the morning.