Madeira - Day 1

Funchal, Botanical Garden





The view over the town and the sea is tremendous. The garden itself a firework of colours.



I liked the way the stump had been given a second life by using palm bark and making pockets for smaller species (top left). There were also big camelia trees still in bloom (top right).



EG found 'his' Brachychiton. He grew one from seeds and moved it from the UK to here without knowing its name. The tree had then already reached 2 m of height. As it had not survived after one of these severe winters, he eventualy found out its name and now a new baby plant will have a fresh start here.



On top, that is a staticia but the blue is much more intense than my camera can show.



The solandra on top left is also living in a pot in my office. We got a small cutting from our first trip to Lanzarote. I was always impressed by the size of the strelizia and the huge variety of spiky specimens. Even the leaves have spikes! (top right)





The picture on top left is the bloom of a 'hydrangea tree', dombeya cacuminum from Madagaskar.



If we are lucky, some of the iris on the picture down on the right, might show up in our garden...




... because gardener's dream is finding a fresh compost heap :-).



The photo below is geranium maderense - my friend told me immediately that it is not hardy enough for our regions. *sigh*



The topiary was mainly of box plants but also of muehlenbeckia, lonicera and others.



We could see the Aida Blu heading for the port of Funchal.



She had arrived when we came down later to get an impression of Funchal.



On that day we did not visit Blandy's wine shop, only on our last day we did.



This is a picture for my British fellows: the ex Beatles boat. Bought by them in 1966, the Vagrant yacht is now high and dry in use as a restaurant.