I am about to jump on a plane and head off to France to lead a tour of gardens and châteaux of Normandy and the Loire Valley and if you haven’t booked it’s a bit late now! But the idea of travelling across the world to see gardens and gardening that I may well have little hope of emulating started me thinking. Is it just horticultural eye candy or is there more to it than that?
I don’t have the money to buy a château in the first place and it would certainly be more than difficult to start anything like those that I will see in an Australian environment. Even were I capable and cashed up, it would look dam silly in the Australian environment anyway. I’ve never seen a château look right out of France, even as a McMansion in one of our newer suburbs.
I believe that we can all learn from what we see no matter if it is damp, green and cultivated like Northern France, or dry and primitive like the deserts of Namibia. We don’t have to want what we see but can take lessons from it and just enjoy the experience. I love seeing tropical vegetation and being exposed to a whole lot of plants I’ve never seen before as it broadens my experience and stops me from getting a big head about everything that I think I know about plants.
Those of you who have followed my blogs will remember that I travelled to Namibia to see possibly the world’s weirdest if ugliest plant (Welwitschia mirabilis) and this seemed like a good enough reason to organise that holiday. It has in fact become my favourite method of trip selection. Just find an iconic plant and then travel there to see it. This didn’t stop me from seeing lion and elephant, which in fact would be hard to miss in that country.
I have been down the Amazon to see the giant water lilies (as well as piranha and anaconda!) and I’ve travelled to California to stand amongst the giant redwoods. A trip to Chile found me amongst the monkey puzzle trees (Araucaria araucana) in the snow and hopping with excitement when I found their national floral emblem Lapageria rosea flowering in the wild.
Other highlights included the plant with the tallest inflorescence in the world, Puya raimondii, a giant pineapple relative in Peru, and the boabs of Madagascar where I hope to be leading a tour back there in 2016 for ASA (Australians Studying Abroad) – and we’ll see lemur and chameleon as well.
I’m even hoping to travel to the Soqotra Archipelago next year to see the amazing Dragons Blood trees (Dracena cinnabari) and at huge expense I have bought the ‘Ethnoflora of the Soqotra Archipelago‘ to start my research. Of course there will be lots more to see as this area has 825 known plant species and 307 of them are endemic! Look the place up on ‘the net’ and you may understand my yearning to go there.
If such adventurous travel is a bit daunting don’t be put off, as there are plenty of iconic plants in less far-flung places that should get your blood pumping. What about our famous mountain ash trees, which are the worlds tallest hardwood trees, or if overseas travel is your desire then the huon pines of Tasmania could float your boat.
It is always said that travel broadens the mind and it is never more so than for a lover of the natural world and I for one want to be on my deathbed (a long time from now!) happy that I did all that I could to see as much of this wonderful world as I could.
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