Dede Sophie

Welcome back to the ‘Walking talking Gardeners’ YouTube channel. We recently posted Part 1 of our visit to Palheiro Gardens in Madeira. Well hold on to your pants as we have part 2 ready for you. Join English Horticulturists Simon and Lorna as the continue their walk around Palheiro Gardens on the Portuguese island of Madeira. Palheiro gardens is open to the public and is one of the premier garden on the island next to Monte Palace Tropical Gardens and Madeira Botanical gardens. Once a private estate is now house a massive collection of plants from across the world planted in stunning Edwardian pleasure gardens. If you don’t want to miss out on future videos don’t forget to click the like and subscribe buttons.

Most of us are familiar with the rich, bright blooms of Bougainvillea cultivars, but on our recent visit to Madeira Botanical gardens we were surprised to come across this hugely long pagoda thickly covered in a selection of well-established Bougainvilleas. Not only was it impressive simple due its size and length, it provided welcome respite form the summer sun. So why not join myself and Lorna as we make our way through this gorgeous example of hard and soft landscaping and listen to our ramblings as we go. For context, size records for bougainvillea spectabilis are not really kept for this species  however one of the largest known girths for the Bougainvillea is in Madeira at 1.35m. Unfortunately that specimen can be found at the Passio Publico do Lido. Funchal and not here in the Botanical Gardens. Be that as it may this is still the largest stretch of specimens we have ever seen