Gorgeous plants

Lovely plants of Madeira

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At home we regularly tease my foodie sister about how she is into foodporn and how the majority of her travel pictures consist of new dishes she discovered along her journeys. However recently it’s been dawning on me that I’m obsessed with something similar, which I guess can be called plantporn.

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I love close up photos of gorgeous plants with their tiny leaves, colourful petals, uncanny shapes and intriguing textures…

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What made Madeira so special to me in terms of plantporn, was that succulents grow in the wild all over the place and in general there were also many unfamiliar plant species I don’t get to see every day.

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I spent a great deal of time in the holidays behind my camera attempting to take decent macros of the amazing plants that caught my eye. (Thanks to Paolo for the picture above and especially for his patience when I get mesmerised by yet another plant!)

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I took these last two pictures in the natural park of the São Lourenco peninsula – though to me these plants look like they really belong in the landscapes of Arrakis (Dune;)

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Sublime succulents in the Madeira Botanical Garden

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I love botanical gardens (this should not really come as a surprise given the nature (literally) of this blog). But I was not prepared for how excited I would be about the Botanical gardens in Funchal.

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Since the island has quite a tropical climate, the botanical gardens have a huge section dedicated just to succulents and cacti which is simply outdoors, with the plants growing directly in the ground.

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The best thing was that we went at the end of the afternoon, near closing time and by the end of our visit we were all alone in the gardens. It was wonderful to be free to observe all the plants at our leisure, in the warm light of the magic-hour sun.

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There were so many different species, I walked around several times to try and see it all. I couldn’t get enough of the amazing colours and details. Like the symmetry of the plant above, and like these little red spikes all along the outside of the leaves of the plant hereunder.

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Or this little guy below who looks to me like a monster’s paw with many tiny claws on it. It’s fascinating how so much colour can just emerges from a stump that looks grey and dried-up…

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Magnificent mosses

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It’s kind of ironic that after enjoying Madeira’s wide open spaces, high peaks and beautiful coastline viewed from the many ‘miradouros’, one of the first things I feel like sharing here is something as small and seemingly insignificant as moss.

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As we went on hikes in the volcanic mountains of Madeira, we came accross the most spectacular walls of mosses along the levadas and beneath waterfalls.

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The shapes, textures, colours and combination of the mosses were so varied and different from anything I’d seen before.  The mosses seemed to grow relentlessly, sometimes in thick layers, basking in the humidity. 

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It was really fascinating to observe them and I loved the patterns they formed, and how they interacted with each other.  Paolo was very patient while I struggled to somehow capture them on camera.  

It reached a peak one day while we were sitting on a log and eating our picnic, and I started to ‘see’ things… The mosses in the picture below look to me like minuscule sci-fi villages with mushroom houses and diminutive trees. Aren’t they amazing?!

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Beautiful balconies and windowsills – 5

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Sao Jorge, Madeira


Ok, so I admit this is neither a balcony nor a windowsill, but I feel this breathtaking collection of succulents overlooking the ocean still kind of fits the topic;-)

(It was very hard not to seem like a stalker while attempting to take decent pictures of the plants through the metal fence of the property, while the owner sat on her deckchair a few meters away).

Beautiful balconies and windowsills – 2

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Monti neighbourhood, Rome, Italy

While I’m away…

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Not only do I love spotting plants who dig their roots into cracks in the sidewalk or holes in walls, I also feel the same passion for luscious green urban balconies, stoops and windowsills overflowing with plants and succulents. (I’ve already mentionned it here before:).

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Tomorrow I’m heading to Madeira for 2 weeks holiday (YAY!) So as I’ll be far from the internet, I scheduled some posts from next week featuring pictures I dug up from my archives.  I hope those beautiful balconies and windowsills spotted during my travels will bring you as much simple joy as they bring me:)  (and in the meantime hopefully I will discover some more while exploring Madeira!)

Plants and the city

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Spotting cute plants growing out of cracks in the pavement, in between bricks of a wall or high up on roof tops is something I really enjoy doing as I walk around a city. I love seeing how plants find a way to thrive regardless of humans building over every available surface with bricks and cement, or spraying sidewalks with toxic weed-killer.

The plants somehow just persevere and find new nooks and crannies to call their own. Like these stunning pink flowers that caught my eye, growing out of a guttter on the roof of a church in the center of Bilbao .

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Or these plants and ferns that amazed me as they held on precariously to the top of this brittle stone wall in an alleyway in Santillana del Mar.

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