Into The Hot Houses

A couple of weeks ago I covered a trip to the Botanic Gardens in Inverness – but only covered the journey through the outside gardens. There are also 2 large glasshouses: one a warm, spacious environment and the other a more tropical damp environment. Both are on 2 levels but the levels are more obvious in the cactus and succulents house.

A wide variety of plants

I don’t think I really realised until then the wide variety of different succulents and cacti that exist. There’s a mix of colours and textures. There are some I really wouldn’t want to get too close to as they are completely covered in a multitude of sharp spines, to others that are really fluffy looking. Although to be honest, I didn’t try touching them either in case they were slightly sharper than they looked. Nature has a way of tricking you sometimes.

I was quite taken with some of the flowers on the cactus as they were very colourful.

The succulents also looked lovely as they too had a wide variety of different colours and textures.

Spikey cactus and a larger spikey plant behind it — Spikey cactus

A white, furry, and fluffy looking cactus — Fluffy cactus

cactus plants and the one slightly to the left has a bright orange flower — Flowering cactus

Carnivorous plants

In between the two different glasshouses is a fascinating area. It’s full of the man-eaters. OK, well, yes I know, that’s a gross exaggeration. There are lots of carnivorous plants – but they don’t eat humans, they’re more happy with insects. I had seen some Venus Flytraps on a previous visit but didn’t notice any on this visit. The one thing that did surprise me though was that these plants didn’t just rely on attracting insects with their “killing mechanism” they had beautiful flowers too.

The tropical glasshouses

A full length view of the tropical house with coloured flowers — Length of the tropical house

A cork tree with leaves and flowers — Cork tree

Large green leaves surrounding a yellow paradise flower — Paradise flower

A red plant with yellow ends which also have a green stripe. They remind me of parrot beaks — This plant reminded me of parrot beaks

A hanging plant with large green leaves, and red fluffy flowers — Fluffy red entrails

Multi-coloured plant: leaves are yellow on the outside of the leaves with a grey strip up the middle of the leave and white surrounding the grey — Grey, white, yellow and green leaved plants

Fishes in a pond, one is orange, 2 small yellow and one massive fish which is silverish — The Monster from the Deep

Moving onto the more tropical glasshouse this is a real joy to walk through as the plants are really closely planted and are a beautiful mix of colours in both their foliage and flowers, especially the entrance from the cactus greenhouse. When you’re wandering through this area you really feel as is you are pushing your way through a tropical paradise.

There were far too many flowers to get individual closeups but I have singled out some of my favourites in this section. From flowers that looked like Birds of Paradise, some that looked like beaks of Parrots and a tree covered in Cork.

There’s also a small waterfall and a fish pond with lots of different sized fishes and a couple that really looked as if they were monsters from the deep.

So two very different environments, one stark almost minimalist in feel with the cactus and the succulents while the other is lush and tropical where you feel the plants are all vying with each other as they would in the wild.

Definitely a place to visit especially with winter rapidly approaching – http://www.invernessbotanicgardens.co.uk.

This blog was originally published on:

20 October 2017

and subsequently modified on:

5 February 2024