I love all different types of plants, but since I'm not overly good at taking care of flowers, because I somehow always forget that flowers also need water, I prefer to have in my apartment ficus, elephant's foot, or something like that. My forgetfulness has a bad effect on my indoor flowers, so I don't have so many of them in the apartment.
They have a beautiful botanical garden in Funchal, which is open all year round, and tropical weather makes this possible. Although the island in general is a feast for the eyes due to the variety of flowers that grow all over the island, it is still nice to see all the plants in one place. What really surprised me was the fact that the plants that grow all over here, are so expensive in the rest of Europe that it is not worth buying them, if you are not interested in taking good care of them.
The Botanical Garden is located in Quinta do Bom Sucesso, with a wonderful panoramic view of the city center. You can find a diverse collection of flowers and plants from all over the world. The garden was opened in 1960 and they have around 2,000 tropical plants.
When I saw these huge trees, ferns and a huge variety of ornamental plants it's surprised me how big they were, because these species are known to us as indoor plants but here they grow outside and mostly reach larger sizes than our houseplants or annuals outside.
The garden is divided into 4 different parts according to the type of flowers and plants, actually five, but I didn't want to see this one, it is Loiro Park with exotic and rare birds...in cages.
But other four are:
Indigenous and endemic plants - Here you can find plants that only grow on Madeira and other Atlantic islands, like the Azores, Canaries and Cape Verde. Around 100 different plants are exhibited here
Tree Garden - Here are plants that can be found in other parts of the world, such as tropical climates or, for example, the Himalayas.
Succulents - most of this plants is coming from South America and the capacity of storing water is what differentiate the plants in this department.
Cultivated, tropical, aromatic, medicinal - In this area you can find mostly fruits, such as bananas, papaya, mango and avocado, as well as coffee trees, and a lot of popular medicinal plants and different spices.
Unfortunately, I'm not a good connoisseur of flowers, so for most of the flowers and plants, I didn't know what were they. Luckily each plant was labeled with a name. But, unfortunately for me, I saw that almost at the end of our wandering around the garden, so I really don't know what the names of most of the plants are. So I set myself the task of identifying at least a few plants, of course with the help of my friend and the app. I managed to name a few of them.
strelitzia reginae - bird of paradise
swiss cheese plant
hibiscus
tecoma capensis
hortensia
nestananas
mimosa pudica or shame plant
I didn't take pictures of all the plants because, you know, I also wanted to enjoy it. But let's look at the ones I managed to photograph.
One question. Do you know what is that?
Before heading home, we had to stop at one more place nearby. When you go up to Monte, be sure to see the best slide in the world. These toboggan sleds appeared around 1850 and were originally meant for transport down to Funchal for people living in Monte.
Today they use them to attract people from all around the world, who want to expirience adrenaline of gliding at high speed through the narrow streets.
Two-seater wicker sleds slide on wooden runners, they are pushed and steered by two men, traditionally dressed in white cotton clothes and a straw hat, and they use their rubber-soled boots as brakes. The track is 2 km long, the descent takes about 10 minutes and sometimes reaches a speed of 50 km/h. The adventurous but safe, "old fashioned" toboggan ride. Old and young can take part in the ride, it will definitely be fun for everyone.
After that, we went downtown for another good dinner and walked a bit along the beach to wait for the sunset, and then was time to go home.
“If you look the right way, you can see that the whole world is a garden.” — Frances Hodgson Burnett
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[//]:# (!pinmapple 32.66165 lat -16.89455 long From Madeira with love - flower power d3scr)
With love, @tinabrezpike❤️
The plants and flowers in the botanical garden look really great! I'm also not such a plant connoisseur which is why I'm always happy when they are labeled:)
Luckily there is also app for identifying plants and that’s been a big help for me and this article 😂
Oh I didn't know there was such a thing haha but that makes it easier of course :)
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