Despite being open for 20 years now, it is the first time either of us has visited the Eden project and we were looking forward to our day out. It was a feat to create a botanical garden in a reclaimed china clay pit and it received a lot of publicity when it opened. I remember seeing photos of the biomes that would have looked just as at home on the moon, huge domes made of inflated plastic pillows on a steel frame.
I thought we were getting close when we spotted this growing bridge …
The road took us through a building site where a new housing estate is growing and will soon encompass Eden, then on to the parking areas which are named after fruits. Having left the car in Lime 2, we took the winding path down into the huge dip containing the gardens. When you are actually there, the size of the biomes is quite amazing, and they look as though they’ve weathered 20 years pretty well.
The surrounding gardens have given their best for this year and are looking a bit autumnal but there are still things to see, including this amazing bloom called Indian Poke, but since every part of the plant is poisonous, it’s maybe not the best choice for the garden!
The first biome contains the world’s largest indoor rainforest and the hexagonal roof provided a stunning backdrop to the tropical planting, which took us to different regions of the world.
There were stunning blooms …
… and also some more discrete ones …
… a rope bridge …
… and even a love heart!
The other has a Mediterranean environment, and includes plants not just from Europe, but also South Africa, California and Australia.
The bougainvillea was very striking …
… but my favourite of the day had to be the kangaroo paw. I’ve seen this in Australian gardens before but this display really highlighted the variety of colours … and while they look furry, they are actually quite rough!
The strong ethos of environmental awareness and education is obvious throughout the site, with lots of information about reducing our footprint, sustainability and climate change. Having said that, having finished a lunch comprising a delicious vegan salad box and pasty, the recycling system was so complicated we couldn’t identify where to dispose of our paper packaging!
The final building is the newest, an education centre which began with this introduction …
The next room contained a huge blue grooved ceramic object with smoke rings being emitted randomly from its orifices! It represents a cyanobacterium, the first organism which was able to use sunlight to split water, making oxygen and enabling life on Earth. Another area contained a gigantic granite seed and there was a display of sustainability projects round the world but it lacked any focus and felt like a missed opportunity.
So much for an easy day wandering round a garden … we still managed to walk almost 4 miles! In the evening we had tapas at Bistro No5 …
… and finished with a quick turn round the harbour before bed, where Chris took this fab shot.
Off Travelling Together 