Day Six - Orr Trip, England

Our first day in London had us headed to Hampton Court Palace, home to the infamous Henry VIII. We had access to both the house and the garden, and while the garden was beautiful, I spent most of the time in the house. We wandered from chamber to chamber "oohing" and "ahhing" over the elaborate living quarters, drooling over the chocolate room and just impressed overall at how extensive everything was. There were scratch and sniff maps that guided you through the rooms and gave you a waft of what you would've expected the room to smell like back then. While the dining hall may have been delectable, the bathroom scent was equally distasteful.

Out in the garden, there were large trees well shaped and maintained, then off to the side of the house a large formal garden and several small themed gardens. We also got a glimpse of the largest grape vine in the world (even setting a Guinness record).

Selfie attempt.

The rest of the day was spent at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, also known as Kew Gardens. Opening in 1759, Kew is 255 years old and one of the most popular attractions around London. Sitting on close to 300 acres, it holds the largest living plants collection in the world. That made for a lot to see in a short amount of time. Essentially everyone grabbed their map, located their "must see" spots and took off. One thing we could unfortunately check off was the conservatory, which was closed for renovations. My list included the Tree Canopy Walk, redwood forest collection, the azalea trail and Kew Palace. Of course, with such a large garden there was plenty to see between the walks from one location to the next. While I can't admit Kew to have been my favorite garden, I was impressed by the number of guests visiting, the shear size of the place and all of the trees that were so huge!

About half of the Conservatory

A view from the Tree Walk

The pavers represent the diameter of a Giant Redwood

Azalea trail

Kew Palace

Alpine Garden

Alpine Garden, part two.

Mr. Peacock, who put on a show for us as we were leaving.

Cheers,
Hanna and Kira

Thursday, May 8th, 2014- England

Today's adventures in the beautiful country of England took us to a more busy and recognizable area on our garden tour trip. We began our day in Oxford. Our first destination for the day was the University of Oxford Botanic Garden, which is the oldest botanic garden in Britain founded in 1621.

Due to our tight, yet flexible itinerary for this day, we were only allotted an hour to stroll through Britain's oldest botanic garden. Despite the short time spent in this garden, the garden exhibited a beautiful, historic garden design. Several greenhouses that contained a plethora of plant material were also on the garden site; each greenhouse possessed a theme that exhibited exotics, tropical, native, or arid plant materials.

One of the best features about this garden, in my opinion, is that all of the plants are labeled throughout the gardens and greenhouses; hence the word "botanic" in the name of the garden. Many of the gardens we toured prior to Oxford Botanic were not botanical gardens; thus, these gardens contain none to very little plant information or plant labels. After viewing new and unfamiliar plant material the previous couple of days, it was nice to finally figure out the names of the plants we saw in the previous gardens we toured on this trip. 

Oxford Botanic encompasses approximately 4.5 acres and is nestled in
the city of Oxford. Despite it's size, the garden illustrates and exhibits over 5,000 different species of beautiful plant material in a garden designed in a classic and historic English manner. The garden design exhibits a formal, yet wild-like, natural placement of plants within planting beds, which gives the garden a relaxed but proper English feel. Out of all of the gardens I toured on this once in a lifetime trip, Oxford Botanic Garden was definitely one of my most favorite gardens. I really liked how this garden displayed a landscape design that effectively utilizes a small space in such a way that makes the 4.5 acre garden look spacious and larger than it is. I was also thrilled to finally being able to figure out and identify the new and unusual plant material I kept seeing within previously toured gardens while on our trip. Check out the link to Oxford Botanic for more information on this historically fabulous garden, and don't forget to take a look at photographs below to get an inside look on a few things I saw during my tour of the garden!

http://www.botanic-garden.ox.ac.uk/











After we left Oxford Botanical, our next destination for the day was the Royal Horticultural Society Garden Wisley.  That's right, a ROYAL botanical garden! Neat, right?

After Black Beauty (Hanna, Jeremiah, and my van) and the Silver Queen (Kira's van) drove for about forty-five minutes from Oxford to Wisley, we arrived at the royal botanical garden around 3 PM. Once we paid our entrance fees at the admissions area, we picked up our garden maps and scattered like who knows what to conquer and see as much as we could in this rather large, lovely garden.

The Wisley garden contains quite an extensive collection of themed gardens. Some of the most interesting and breath taking gardens I viewed include: the rock garden, which was THE best rock garden I had ever seen before, the bonsai walk (really neat) and the herb garden. There are many other beautiful rooms, walks, and greenhouses in this garden, of course, but the rooms and areas I mentioned were particularly memorable for me. For more information on the Royal Horticultural Society Garden Wisley, see the link below.
http://www.rhs.org.uk/gardens/wisley

Once we left the beautiful Wisley garden, the crew set off for our last destination, London, England! After about an hour or so of a drive, Black Beauty and Silver Queen pulled up in front of The Millenia, our gorgeous hotel and home for the next three nights. We hustled ourselves and our luggage out of the vans and into the hotel lobby so our leaders could park the cars while we students proceeded to check into our hotel rooms and put our luggage away. Once we checked into our rooms and freshened up a bit, we met the study abroad students in the hotel lobby. We then caravan-ed a short distance down the street from the hotel to a restaurant called, Wild Wood, where we had a nice group dinner. After dinner, we had our traditional counsel meeting before bed to discuss the next day's plans; then we went off to bed!

That concludes our day's memorable adventures in a nut shell, folks! Stay tuned for more news about our amazing and once-in-a-lifetime garden tour trip in London. Thank you for reading and checking in.

Cheers!
-Hilary

Day Four - Orr Trip, England

Today's garden itinerary included Hidcote and Snowshill.

Hidcote is part of the National Trust and was created by Lawrence Johnston with the theme of garden "rooms." Each section of the garden had a unique feel such as the white room and red room where most of the plant material either had the corresponding flower color or foliage color. The garden was roughly ten acres, but covered from one end to the other with plant material, had paths that took you in several directions and was just big enough to keep you a decent distance from other guests.

Entering Hidcote.

Seth and Kira

The Red Room

The Allee

Hilary and Kira

This was considered to be the "lucky" garden as some of us lost things, only for them to be returned. Dr. Robinson's son dropped his sippy cup and a garden staff member handed it back to one of the students. We assume she matched us up by our accents. Kira lost a rock Seth found for her that was in the shape of Alabama, but after spending some time looking down the allee for it, she found it right beneath her feet. Probably the most relieving situation was when Britton left his passport on a bench after getting up, but had a couple who were guest of the garden promptly return it back to him.

The second garden of the day was Snowshill. This garden was a little different in the respect that the focus wasn't completely on the garden, but split between the garden and a house. The residence was owned by Mr. Charles Wade, who was a collector of many things. Inside his house, guests could walk through and see the many items which he collected. Anything from bicycles and childrens toys to spinning wheels and weapons could be found. The garden was a small 2-acre area seeming to contain more "stuff" than plants. Mr. Wade's living quarters, a dove cote and miscellaneous art decorations are some of the items found throughout the  garden.

Mr. Wade's collection house

His collection of bicycles

A garden entrance

The garden exit

Vegetable garden

Dove Cote, aka extravagant coop

Fishing village in bottom right corner.

We all thoroughly enjoyed these two gardens, as they were both small enough to manage within the timeframe given, but large enough to keep you interested.

Cheers,
Kira Chaloupka

Day Two - May 5, 2014

     Monday's adventures began with us leaving Bowness-on-Windermere and the Lake District. We headed South to Preston, where we visited Barton Grange Garden Centre.

The entrance to Barton Grange Garden Centre.

     Dr. Ponder would love to take his Retail Garden Center Management class there because it was the epitome of a great garden center. The parking lot was made out of permeable pavers, which is just one of many ways that the garden center was eco-friendly. These pavers allow water to drain through, reducing runoff that can carry oil into waterways and contribute to erosion. Inside the garden centre was a cook shop, home goods store, restaurant, farm store, and of course, a plant center. Their customer service was excellent and I bought several souvenirs from the farm store.

Barton Grange had a large selection of both out- and indoor furniture.

Their 5 year guarantee beats the 1 year warranty at our box stores, like Lowes.

5-a-Day Ray was made of colorful pots and a small portable
greenhouse. He hung over the vegetables section to encourage
customers to grow vegetables and stay healthy.

The Farm Store had many products I've never seen, like these citrus flavored cheeses.

     Next we were off to pick up Kira from the airport in Manchester. What was supposed to be a quick "take away" turned out to be quite the adventure. Let's just say navigating English roadways is not as simple as reading signs, especially when the appropriate signs aren't visible due to construction. Navigating the airport roundabouts was not easy, either!

     After finally finding our way to the terminal and picking Kira up, we headed West toward Wales to see Bodnant Gardens. The 80-acre garden featured countless varieties of rhododendrons and azaleas, a Laburnum arch, waterfalls, and large lawns. We all wish we would have had more time to explore; even a full day would not have been long enough!

We discovered Welsh, or Cymraeg, is actually another
language. I had no idea!

The backside of the entrance to Bodnant had a large
Lady Banks Rose (R. banksiae) just beginning to bloom.

One of the more formal gardens on the property, with
four paths leading to a fountain in the center.

Ethan explored on his own while Dr. Robinson stopped
for a moment to take pictures.

The Laburnum (L. x vossi) arch wasn't blooming yet but
it would soon become a tunnel of yellow flowers!

This giant sequoia (S. gigantea) was planted in 1876.

This staircase was lined with Rhododendrons and perennials.
The landscaping in this area felt very natural and relaxing.

This bridge led over a creek that once powered the corn mill inside this watermill.

This was the lowest of several terraces that led down the hill and away from the house.

After 5 minutes of walking up the terraces, I could begin to
see the house in the distance. Bodnant Gardens was huge!

Many of the staircases and walls at Bodnant had
spaces between stones for planting perennials.

The Alpine Garden on the terrace just below the house.

A view of the house across one of several large lawns.

     We stayed at Bodnant until close, then headed to a nearby town fair. The fair was closing by the time we made it to town but we spent some time exploring the area and enjoying a view of the Irish Sea. As we approached we had hopes of a beautiful, sandy beach but were instead met with a bed of boulders. Nonetheless, we enjoyed the views and took time to appreciate the old European architecture of the town.

The shore was slick with algae and kelp
but it had a nice view, nonetheless.

     Next we made our way to Chester to check in at the hotel Mercure, where we stayed for the night. After taking a few minutes to put away our luggage and relax, we headed to the town centre to get dinner. This area of town was known as "The Rows" and is part of the rich history of Chester. Many of the historic buildings had been maintained, allowing us views of several breathtaking cathedrals and Tudor architecture. Most of the stores had closed by this time (around 8:15pm) but we were able to find a little restaurant, Bella Italia. We were lucky to find Italian food. With all the walking we've been doing, we need all the carbs we can get!

     After a delicious and filling meal, we quickly made our way back to the hotel for some well-deserved sleep. Now to prepare for the excitement of Biddulph Grange and Chatsworth House tomorrow. Stay tuned!

War Eagle!
Jeremiah DeVore