Beautiful Britain - Ventnor Botanical Gardens, Isle of Wight

Hi there everyone

It's Saturday afternoon and this week has seen pretty much the whole of the UK shivering as 'The Beast from The East' made its presence known.

Whilst it may seem a million miles away, it feels like a good time for a reminder of warm Autumn days, blue skies and glorious sunshine.

Last week I shared our visit to the very lovely Steephill Cove on the Isle of Wight with you, which we spotted from the coastal path during our time at Ventnor Botanical Gardens. Now feels as good a time as any to let you know what we thought of the gardens themselves.

We didn't really have much of a clue as to what to expect from the gardens, but whilst we were at Quarr Abbey we'd been chatting to some other visitors who had been, and they said it was definitely worth a visit. Well, as it was a glorious day and seeing as we could use our Gardeners' World '2 for 1' voucher we decided to give it a go.

We checked in, got ourselves a leaflet and headed straight into the cafe for a quick drink ...
It's a really interesting place, sitting on the site of an old Victorian chest & respiratory disease hospital, where patients would come to be treated and get well in the pleasant coastal climate. The car park covers the actual footprint of the old hospital building. We had a good browse of the map and worked out a route to make sure that we didn't miss anything ...
As it was early October, and definitely moving into Autumn, we weren't expecting to see that much in flower and we headed through the Herb & Medicinal Garden and the Fig Pergola to the South African Terrace where we were hit with this real unexpected treat ...

Agapanthus, one of my favourite plants, and red hot pokers against an almost clear blue sky, an absolute riot of colour. If this was all we saw in flower we would still be happy. Just beautiful 💜

We carried on through the Australian Garden, the Hydrangea Dell and the New Zealand Garden, which were all pale by comparison but really drew you in to want to find out what was around the next corner ...

Next it was the Palm Garden, one of the few areas of the garden surviving from the days of the hospital, home to the oldest palms in the British Isles, collected for Queen Victoria. Against the clear blue sky they looked suitably majestic ...

From the Palm Garden we emerged, ducking under the Angel's Trumpet, which can only be described as magnificent ...

... past the passionflower, which was still in full bloom ...
... to the Fish Pond ...
The Fish Pond is at the back of the Edulis Restaurant, where we were planning to eat lunch. As it was a little early we spent about half an hour sitting in the sun at the edge of the pond, watching a turtle make its way out of the water to soak up some of the warmth of the sunshine ...
... before finding a table in a sunny spot, where we enjoyed a tasty and relaxed lunch ... outside ... in October!!

Refreshed and with lots still to explore we headed through the Mediterranean Garden, the Hop Yard and past the Long Border, where we found more colour in the yellows of the Rudbekia and the purples of the Salvia ...

We went up through The Japanese Garden ...

... and out onto the coastal path, where, as you know, we managed to spot Steephill Cove in the distance.

There wasn't that much left to see and we headed over to the Arid Garden, not expecting much, after all ... succulents, how interesting can they be? Well, we had to pretty much eat our words. It was brilliant, the plants can only really be described as spectacular, some were absolutely huge and were definitely worthy of plenty of photos ...
We had a quick look in The Heritage Centre, which gave a little information about the days when the old hospital was on the site ...
... before the last stop of our visit, which was the Tropical House and Hub. Boy, was it warm and sticky in there. But just look at these lily pads, they really looked as though we could have walked on them ...

So, that was it for our visit. We had certainly got plenty of steps in, had a very nice relaxing lunch, seen lots of interesting things and had found our next port of call. We were off to find Steephill Cove.

We both said that we'd love to go again, in the Summer time, when we would get to see even more in flower, but it had most definitely been worth a visit in the Autumn. If you get the chance to go, we are both more than happy to recommend it as a good way to spend a very pleasnat afternoon. 😀