botany

Nature’s decline

/ mikeosbornphoto / 6 Comments

In June I went to the walled garden in Ravenscourt Park here in west London, just a stone’s throw away from my home. It was bursting with colour and life, a sun-blessed testament to a very fine summer.

A very recent return tells a different story, but not an unexpected one. The garden’s life is slowly ebbing away, with signs of decay and death. This has its own beauty.

The aim was to avoid piles of leaves in my photographs. The autumn colour scheme creeps into some images, but doesn’t dominate. I also came to the garden in the grip of winter, which you can view here.

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Chelsea’s oasis

/ mikeosbornphoto / 8 Comments

Just a stroll away from the hustle and bustle of the King’s Road is a true botanical oasis which I’ve only just got around to visiting after 13 years in London.

The Chelsea Physic Garden has been in existence since 1673, and is bulging with beautiful plants, many of them medicinal or edible. In this golden summer we’ve been enjoying for a couple of weeks now, the garden is bristling with blossoms and looks wonderful.

Visitors come to study the plants, relax on the lawns, take photographs – and even enjoy a spot of watercolour painting. Our visit will always be memorable for other reasons – we returned home to watch homegrown tennis ace Andy Murray seal a historic Wimbledon title. All in all, the best of summer.

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If you like this, you will like The walled garden

Beauty at the Barrier

/ mikeosbornphoto / 7 Comments

One is a hulking mass of steel. The other is a gentle spray of fluffy, lavender blue blossoms. They are in the same tiny corner of London.

The man-made structure defends the capital from floods, while the flowers perhaps have less practical uses. But they are both beautiful and photogenic, in very different ways.

The Thames Barrier sits sturdily in a corner of south-east London, a might of engineering which some might consider an unnatural blot on the riverscape.

But next to the Barrier, a wonderfully sculpted garden sits, and is full of blooms and nature’s colourful bounty.

More photographs will be published here soon. In the meantime, which of these beauties do you prefer?