The Royal Botanic Gardens Edinburgh

Banana flower

 This is pretty late, but for my birthday in February we visited The Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh.  Though it was generally soggy and not greatly flourishing outdoors, they have 10 glasshouses with individually controlled temperature environments, so they can grow a broad variety of plants at any time of the year.  These are a select few of the 1000s of photos I took on the trip!

The gorgeous glasshouse in the winter sun (and captured hubby standing admiring it too!)

Inside the glasshouse there were all sorts of different areas.  I have to say I loved the tropical ones the most for their range of colours!

Those green bits = bananas!

Cocoa pods

A maturing pineapple

Sorry - camera a little steamed up!

There were so many gorgeous flowers!

No idea what this is, but it looks very alien!!

There was even a range of fascinating and unusual leaves

Odd leaves didn't look like a real plant at first, but they are!

In the cactus and succulents glasshouse

There was even a Robin in there!

 Outside crocuses were one of the few plants growing happily outdoors on February 26th, literally coating the ground!

Crocuses

So much detail in tiny crocuses

 The rhododendrons were also out in a range of buds and full flowers.  

Rhododendron 

You're allowed to take photos as long as you don't sell them (I think you can sell them but you need permission).  I'll certainly be getting some of these beautiful plants made up as prints for my own wall though!!

If you're ever in Edinburgh, drop by the Gardens - outside is free entry, and the Glasshouse is a bargain £5 per person to the whole thing.  As you can see, even during Winter there's plenty to see, so its worth going at any time of the year.  There's also student gardens and vegetable patches to visit, though these were pretty quiet in February.