I spent a lovely sunny July afternoon at the Oxford Botanic Garden when I visited a couple of weeks ago. The garden, founded in 1621, is the oldest botanic garden in Britain and on of the world's oldest. There are nearly 5 acres of gardens to enjoy. The garden contains walled gardens, glasshouses, and different bedding, and it lies next to the river. I had a lovely day to explore it.
There are different themed beds. Some of the themed beds are plants with medicinal properties. Other beds contain plants from different regions. There are also the glass houses, which you'll see my photographs of later.
The garden was frequently visited by Lewis Carroll, and it inspired "Alices Adventures in Wonderland". There is a Cheshire cat sculpture in one of the trees, which was from the book. Another visitor to the gardens was J.R.R. Tolkien. He spent a lot of time under a tree, which was similar to his Ents characters in the "The Lord of the Rings" series; the tree was later removed. One of the benches is also popularized in "His Dark Materials" novel by Philip Pullman. I actually sat for awhile at this very bench and saw the sculpture, but I had no idea at the time.
I first went to explore the different glasshouses, and each of them featured something different. One was a lilly house. One was palms. Another one contained cacti. Another one was rainforest, and another was Japanese. Each had a walkway between.
Outside, the gardens had beautiful flowers.
I walked through the bedded area next.
Another area had vegetables and fruit trees.
The gardens themselves go to the edge of the river. There were always punters going by.
The botanic gardens were beautiful, and I had the perfect day to see them in the height of the summer.
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