Oxford is particularly beautiful in the spring, as trees and flowers bloom, daffodils appear in the most surprising places and the trees sprout fresh green leaves. Clean, with bursts of bright colours. Nowhere is this more evident than the Oxford Botanic Garden.
On Friday we had play date planned for the boys. As it was a nice sunny day instead of meeting at our house we decided to meet friends at the Botanic Gardens for a stroll.
The harsh and long winter is very evident- very few plants were out.
The children were immediately drawn to the fountain in the middle, with their resident pair of ducks. The pair swam right up to where the kids were leaning to the water. Having nothing to feed them with, they swam to the next people coming along.
There was are real chill on the air and we headed to my favourite place- the greenhouses. Here you enter different worlds with each room. The passage between them an overgrown juggle. I love it! And the kids loved it.
The giant waterlily wasn’t the one stealing the show in the lily room, it was the jade vine… all 500m of one plant!
Hugo kept going back again and again to the insectivorous house with its magnifying glasses put out for visitors to enjoy the delicate detail of these fascinating little insect eating plants.
Once we’d warmed up we headed out to the newer section beyond the walled garden, here we were greeted by 2 further water features with their resident pair of ducks each. And along a long stretch of south-facing wall, a stunning burst of colour provided by tulips. We practiced our colours in all three languages- English, Dutch and Hungarian
It was a lovely visit only ruined by some imbecile telling us to take our children away from the edge of the water because he didn’t want to have to jump in to rescue them. I hate it that everyone is an expert when it comes to parenting your children!
The educational element is evident throughout the garden- from the models of molecules of the active ingredients we grow some of the plants for to the interactive content added through audio tour and QR codes linking to short videos (as is the above video about the Jade Vine)
We’ll be back in next month to see how the gardens change. In the meantime, let’s hope for some more good weather to bring on the plants!