Spring Colour Watch Blog: bright is beautiful
Take a look back over the previous twelve weeks of this year’s Spring Colour Watch Blog, and you’ll see a succession of bold colours.
From the earliest days of spring, we saw large pink blooms amongst the bare branches of the magnolias. Now, the arboretum is a very much greener place. Leaves are emerging on the oak trees around Circular Drive, providing a lush backdrop to the flame-coloured rhododendrons and deep tones of the bluebells.
Add a blue sky to the mix and you’ve got quite a kaleidoscope. There are some great views to been seen around the arboretum as the leaves fill out the outline of the landscape.
Much of this was carefully planned by the arboretum’s original creators from the 1840s onwards. They were following W. S. Gilpin’s picturesque principles of landscape design: picturesque it certainly is and much of the Forestry Commission’s work at Westonbirt today is carefully planned to continue this.
The biggest of the rhododendrons continue to emerge. Rhododendron ‘Nero’ on Loop Walk and Rhododendron ‘Barbara Wallace’ on Circular Drive look particularly good in the sunshine – we’ve had plenty of that this week!
Some of Westonbirt’s best loved trees, the Japanese maples from which we take our logo, also sing out in the sun. Acer Glade in the Old Arboretum is a great place to explore with a camera, with leaves which are large and golden, small and red or feathery and green. Take a look at last week’s blog to see how the maples in Silk Wood compare.
Useful links
More information about spring at Westonbirt
Become a member of the Friends of Westonbirt Arboretum
