This week’s theme for The Gallery is colour. Colour, especially in winter, is something I yearn for and of course then natural colour can be hard to find. One way to find natural colour in winter is to visit somewhere that cheats a little by giving nature a helping hand. This pictures were taken at Birmingham Botanical Gardens (a favourite place of mine to visit to the extent that I have an annual pass). These flowers will obviously have been raised in hot houses with extra heating and maybe extra light too. By providing extra heat and light these plants have been enabled to flower despite the conditions outside.
It’s lovely to see these exotic looking flowers blooming at any time of year. But, they are especially welcome as reminders of summer on a cold, dull wintry day, when there may be very little natural colour to be had.