Janet Baraclough wrote:
The message
from "Icarus" contains these words:

I expect this is a bit of a minority interest, but I love tropical
houses. We used to have one in Victoria Park in Portsmouth that I
visited as a kid - I loved all that lush vegetation, the stepping
stones over the fish pond etc. I've since seen one or two in
other
places, e.g. Cotswold Wildlife Park. Could sit in there for ages
just enjoying the warmth and watching the wildlife. Anyone else
here share my enthusiasm, and maybe have some good recommendations
for other tropical houses elsewhere?

I love the smell, especially on wet winter days. Kew, Glasgow
and
Edinburgh Botanical Gardens all have crackers, well worth a
visit.
Queens Park in Glasgow used to have one, but during the 70's
someone
in the parks dept had the notion of having free-range parrots, or
was
it cockatoos, flying loose among the tropical plants. The birds
rapidly demolished the woodwork supporting the ironwork and glass,
it
was hurriedly closed, and afaik never re-opened :-}

I used to love the relatively small one in the Oxford Bot Gardens,
close to Magdalen Bridge: my father, visiting once, had to leave it
because it reminded him painfully of war service in New Guinea, so it
must have been good! I hope it's still there.

Don't neglect the architecturally stunning glasshouse at the new
National Botanic Garden of Wales near Carmarthen: they run it as a
Mediterranean habitat, not a tropical one, and it's full of good
Australian etc stuff. They need all the support they can get, too,
not having had all the publicity bovril lavished on "Eden" and
others.

--
Mike.