Whilst visiting Palma on the island of Mallorca, we had a visit to the Arab Baths in the old town. Dating to 10th or 11th century, these are the only arab baths remaining in the city. as well...
http://www.alternativeeden.com/2023/01/arab-baths-in-palma-de-mallorca.html
Growing up in the tropics the warmest temperature I've ever experienced was 34C (93F) in the depths of summer (albeit paired up with oppressive levels of humidity). Who would know then that I wou...
No gardening blog year would be complete (I know we did skip blogging a year or two) without us giving an update on our tiny front garden at least once. It all started in 2014 when we finally so...
http://www.alternativeeden.com/2022/07/front-garden-update.html
Last year we posted about out little collection of Mangave displayed on our top patio. Time for an update but first a little rescue story: Mangave 'Mission to Mars' Last weekend we spotte...
http://www.alternativeeden.com/2022/07/mad-about-mangave-update.html
A few days ago the photo below came up on my Facebook timeline, from around 2015/2016 (I think)... It's quite a significant photo in the sense that it led to the more familiar succulent p...
http://www.alternativeeden.com/2022/07/when-self-criticism-leads-to-better.html
Let's have a quick look at a special group of Scheffleras with no ID growing in our utility/propagation area. Their background is explained below. A few years ago we visited Taiwan and had ...
http://www.alternativeeden.com/2022/06/scheffleras-from-taiwan.html
The hard landscaping of our top patio has pretty much been unchanged since we moved into our place back in 2005. The paving is composed of mainly thick concrete paving slabs and bricks arranged t...
http://www.alternativeeden.com/2022/06/fixing-what-aint-broken.html
Continuing on from our previous post regarding the Fern House at Garfield Park Conservatory is a feature on the first section you'll see when you go in the conservatory: the Palm House. The vi...
http://www.alternativeeden.com/2022/06/palm-house-at-garfield-park-conservatory.html
The Garfield Park Conservatory has several botanical sections with the Palm House and Fern House occupying the largest spaces. The smaller ones are no less remarkable and the best of the smalle...
http://www.alternativeeden.com/2022/06/aroid-house-at-garfield-park.html
Cyphomandra corymbiflora, sometimes called a hardy tree tomato, has been growing in our garden for well over a decade, going through the poor winter of 2010. We have found it pretty tough, alth...
http://www.alternativeeden.com/2022/06/favourite-plant-of-week-cyphomandra.html
Last weekend we took on a mini project by making over the side passage of the house that leads on to the garden. It had a partial makeover before, when we sorted out the planting halfway through ...
http://www.alternativeeden.com/2022/06/side-passage-makeover.html
A glimpse of what Illinois may have looked like 300 million years ago. That was the vision of landscape architect Jens Jensen when he conceptualised the Fern House within Garfield Park Conservato...
http://www.alternativeeden.com/2022/06/fern-house-at-garfield-park-conservatory.html
There was an occasion before where a photographer came here and my role as she took photos was to trail behind, with a towel and dust pan to hand. Every time she identified a subject or frame to ...
http://www.alternativeeden.com/2022/06/hosepipe-and-secateurs.html
On our way to Kew Gardens last Thursday we popped round to The Palm Centre first as we always did in the past. We haven't been to Kew Gardens for four years and even more so to The Palm Centre, ...
http://www.alternativeeden.com/2022/06/quick-trip-to-palm-centre.html
As I look at the plants in our utility and greenhouse area, I found myself admiring three of the big leafed magnolias there waiting to be planted. I seem to have inadvertently collected them, fin...
http://www.alternativeeden.com/2022/05/big-leafed-magnolias-for-garden.html
It took it's time but finally it's getting going again, this variegated Brassaiopsis hispida... Brassaiopsis hispida variegated I shouldn't have been surprised that it was slow to get go...
http://www.alternativeeden.com/2022/05/variegated-beauty.html
Well not quite but have spent some time recently potting up some of the ones we have... Mangave 'Inkblot' We've only every grown Manfreda before with moderate success and two Mangaves, 'Blo...
http://www.alternativeeden.com/2021/07/mad-about-mangave.html
There's a couple of plants in the garden I want to highlight on this post that are doing fine despite our expectations of just being summer bedding due to their reputation of being only borderlin...
http://www.alternativeeden.com/2021/07/surprisingly-doing-fine.html
We have grown the Wollemi Pine (Wollemia nobilis) in our garden for over a decade now and despite the set back it experienced in winter 2010, it has recovered albeit slowly to become an attractiv...
A staple "exotic" plant, and one that we use fairly sparingly in the garden. With a selection of common names such as Cabbage palm or Torbay palm making reference to the word palm, it is often ...
http://www.alternativeeden.com/2021/06/cordyline-australis.html
We recently visited North Wales - see earlier post about visit to Crug Farm Plants , staying in Llandudno. I had visited many times as a child, but I don't think I have been back since my teens.�...
http://www.alternativeeden.com/2021/06/a-short-trip-to-north-wales.html
At this time of the year one of the regular garden jobs is to hunt the wayward bamboo rhizomes, we grow a number of Phyllostachys species, and most have been seen to wander in our garden (ignore ...
http://www.alternativeeden.com/2021/06/the-never-ending-task.html
Crug Farm Plants are well known for their large selection of unusual plants, and despite having been buying plants from Crug for many years we had not managed to visit until recently. Our lack of...
http://www.alternativeeden.com/2021/06/a-trip-to-crug-farm.html
Through the years we've had blog posts before answering the question 'What's in the box ?'. This time we've added a paper bag for good measure... First one was something I spotted at a garde...
Large leaf Gunneras seem to be extra popular in the UK this year, and there are a lot of questions and discussions floating around forums and Facebook groups about them. Mainly the discussions ar...
http://www.alternativeeden.com/2021/06/two-unusual-gunneras.html