Another Day, Another Garden

May 24, 2011
We left Chester today and drove into northern Wales to the Bodnant Botanical Garden. It is the largest and easily the most impressive of the gardens we have visited. We won't bore you with a list of the same flowers we have seen in the other gardens. The one feature that did separate Bodnant from the other gardens was the Laburnum Arch. Laburnam is a large shade tree that in the spring has beautiful yellow flowers that hang down resulting in the tree being called "golden rain tree" or "golden chain tree". We've heard it both ways. At the Bodnant Gardens, the Laburnum has been esplanade into an arch with the "golden chains" of flowers hanging down through the arch. Tim could barely walk under the arch of flowers. For about two weeks each spring it is absolutely breathtaking and fortunately we were there during the right time. It was fun to listen to all of the first time visitors reacting to this stunning feature.
A few words about flowers in general. We both love rhododendron and one of our biggest disappointments in our own gardening is our inability to grow spectacular rhodos. In England they have become so pervasive that they are almost consider weeds. There are places in the southeast of England where the government has actually destroyed rhododendrons in the country side because they were taking over all of the other plants. We understand this intellectually, but emotionally we think these bureaucrats` should all be beheaded. Where is the Queen when you really need her?
We have not mentioned the creative ways that hosta's are used among the flowering plants to enhance the "palette" of the border. Tim's mother, who has some beautiful and unusual hosta's in her garden would be particularly interested in this.
We left Bodnant Garden and drove south through the middle of Wales on small roads. The first road was about the size of the road we live on. Then Lynda had us driving down a road about the width of our drive way. Actually, the scenery was incredible. We drove through forest land and up into pretty stark mountains. Tonight we are staying in a B & B in little town that we can't pronounce because there are too many consonants and not enough vowels. The two signs in our pictures above say the same thing, one in English and the other in Welsh. We rest our case!
Tomorrow we plan to drive through Cardiff, Wales and then back into England. The next stop on our itinerary is the Cheddar Gorge, outside of Bath. And yes, they do make some of the finest cheddar cheese in all of England in the Cheddar Gorge.