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From Newsletter 74 - July 2014
Visit to the Leiden Botanical Garden, the Hortus Botanicus.
On Saturday May 24th 2014, 22 participants from the Bromelia Contact Group met together at 10:30am in the garden café of the Hortus. After welcoming us with coffee and pastries, Art Vogel, member of our society and retired head of the Hortus greenhouses, invited us to go with him to the recently renovated Tropical House. The major restoration of this monumental conservatory complex was started in April 2012 and took a year and a half.
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The tour started through the big Winter Garden conservatory with its various species of tree-ferns and palm-ferns (Cycas) before going outside to the Tropical House where Art began by showing us what had been changed on the outside. The whole building has been made five meters (16ft) higher. A great deal has been done to make the complex more environmentally friendly by using high efficiency insulating glass and low-energy lighting. Once inside, he told us about the enormous amount of work it took to remove the many tropical and subtropical plants and place them in temporary homes. A wonderful new addition in the renovated building is the high walkway, from which the entire flora below can be surveyed. Various species of banana reigned among the many tropical trees, some flowering with their enormous purple inflorescences, others with big bunches of bananas ("banana stems", composed of tiers or "hands"). Many climbing plants, some with exquisite flowers, had already taken over the walkway railing.
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As we walked among the hundreds of different tropical plants, shrubs and trees, Art told us about all the work involved in redesigning and replanting the complex and about the successful recovery (luckily!) of the many plants that "had been out visiting". From time to time we stopped at a particularly striking flower or plant and Art answered our questions about it.
In the middle of the orchid collection Art caused much hilarity by inviting us to have a good sniff of a richly blooming Bulbophyllum variety. Some of us fell into his trap but their looks of disgust (rotting fish!) stopped the rest of us from following their example.
Naturally, we did not omit a visit to the Victoria Pavilion, with the famous waterlily Victoria amazonica (syn: regia). A large catfish, which lives in the pool, amazingly survived the renovation. It was a very cold winter and during the rebuilding, which involved replacing the roof by a new one, the pool had to be largely emptied. All attempts to catch the catfish failed. When the pavilion was replanted and the pool refilled, it turned out that he had hidden himself very well and he then reappeared!
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A walk through the beautiful garden with its very special old trees and its wild flowers, along the canal and past the neighbouring Observatory, brought an end to this visit we had all found so interesting. In the garden café our chairman, Eric Gouda, thanked Art Vogel warmly for his guided tour. All the participants appreciated this very much.
Finally, most of us were glad to take advantage of the sunny outdoor terrace to have a pleasant lunch together and to enjoy recalling all our impressions of the visit.
All the above photographs were taken by Cees Fransen(except the last one of course), for which we thank him very much!
Roel Tomassen, story.
Editing: Eric Gouda
Translation: MaryRose Hoare
Bijgewerkt: 20140821, 1920 keer bekeken
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