WHAT a great place Belfast Botanic Gardens is! Not only is it a serious botanical institution, but it is also a sprawling, 28 acre public park. So, while the plant buffs wrinkle their brows at the splendid specimens in the Palm House and the Tropical Ravine, other members of the party can let off steam on the endless expanses of mown grass, or relax on the many inviting benches.
Belfast's elegant Palm House, one of the earliest examples of a curvilinear cast iron glass house, was engineered by Dubliner Richard Turner. Its construction started in 1839, predating both of Turner's other masterpieces at Glasnevin and Kew. Outside the Palm House there are brilliantly noisy outbreaks of carpet bedding: radiant yellow and orange marigolds, pink and red pelargoniums, multi coloured snap dragons and bright begonias. Gardeners who turn their noses up at "vulgar" annuals will no doubt faint clean away at the unrestrained, brash exuberance of it.
And once inside the Palm House they are still not safe. For here, one wing is almost entirely devoted to a rousing display of beautifully grown, half hardy annuals: more pelargoniums, red, yellow and pink tufted celosias and 30 varieties of coleus, the "painted nettle".
The tall, domed, central portion of the Palm House is home to most of the gardens star performers, many from Australasia. A recent acquisition, the Australian grass tree (x Anthorrhoea preissii) is more than 350 years old. This improbable plant has a grassy cap on top of a charred, black trunk - and this year when it flowered, it produced a slim baseball bat out of its green hat. Wonderful!
The Agathis vitensis, a shinyleaved, post carboniferous plant, is also in production at the moment - its bounty a light green, round cone, like an inexpensive plastic Christmas decoration. Besides these prized peculiarities, there is a miniature forest of other subtropical plants under the 3,000 piece glass dome: bristling - cacti, stocky Phoenix palms, monstrous spiky agaves and shuttlecock shaped cycads. The "stove wing" of the Palm House is filled with more palms and ferns - and plants which many people will recognise as "house plants", only here they are grown far more expertly than on any domestic window sill.
Beyond the Palm House, the Tropical Ravine is a delightful piece of romantic Victoriana. The long, low, red brick and glass building contains an eerie, sunken glen where a tumble of tropical vegetation sweats in the steamy heat. A railed walkway allows the visitor to circle the top of the glen and gaze down into the green jungle. The Victorian parlour favourite, the aspidistra, has colonised one wall of the ravine, while banana plants (bearing baby green bananas), camellias, grapefruit trees, hibiscus, tree ferns and many other exotics push up from the floor.
In the latter half of the building, the heat is turned up and the rank smell of hot vegetation clings to the moist air. In a murky pool, under fronds of papyrus and sugar cane, red eyed turtles amuse themselves in laborious slow motion. On a summer's day the heat eventually becomes overwhelming, driving the visitor out into the fresh air.
Nearby, the enormously long herbaceous borders are wearing their bright yellow and red August clothing. And the rose garden - where many of the 8,000 rose shrubs are still in bloom - beckons, its formal beds crisply incised out of smooth grass.
For those who are still not horticulturally sated, there are two engrossing exhibitions at the adjoining Ulster Museum: Raymond Piper's watercolours of native Irish orchids and Treasures of the Royal Horticultural Society, botanical paintings and drawings from the early 18th century to the present day.
