Heading South

Booked to give a talk this afternoon to the South Wales AGS group I headed south this morning.  My hosts, long-time friends and truly expert bulb growers, live near Carmarthen but the talk meeting place was right down in Bridgend.  The drive to Carmarthen, through rolling hills of West Wales was mostly a rural idyll, if slow.   The heavily populated areas along the Valleys of the south was like being in a different country!   

It was nice to spend some time with B & R and have a look around their interesting garden and their assorted greenhouses and poly tunnels, the largest greenhouse, 40ft long, covers an area greater than my front garden!   All full of bulbs and cyclamen.   There were flowers, mostly colchicum and cyclamen, all somewhat disarranged after the extreme heat last week but this little orchid, Pterostylis concinna was both unusual and striking.   Picking up the today's theme, it's from Australia where it grows principally in New South Wales!

The talk on some of the alpine flowers and wildlife that grow in the area Hilary lives went well and the drive back was uneventful.  After a busy week, I will sleep well tonight.  Tomorrow it's the North Wales AGS group meeting .... so a drive North to Bangor.  It's an evening meeting so I can have a lie in :-)