On my most recent visit to Woodthorpe Grange Park I went to have a look around the Plant Shop and saw that the Tropical House was open. I haven’t been inside for probably at least a decade because it has had some very odd opening hours, but now I see they are keeping it open at the same time as the shop, so Monday-Sunday 10-4. There’s been a nursery (in the flower sense!) at Woodthorpe since the 1920s and the flower displays that adorn the city during the spring and summer and for the Britain in Bloom and other competitions in Nottingham are grown here; the shop sells off excess stock as well as locally produced gifts.
The Tropical House dates from 1995 as part of the Council’s modernisation drive for the nursery and is fairly small (it probably barely takes ten minutes to walk around if you’re going slow). I couldn’t tell you what most of the plants are but the information board at the front does mention banana, olive, rubber and lime as some of the plant species on display. Whatever they are they were impressively large though not very colourful at this time of year.
There’s a neatly laid out path that takes you around the tropical house with plants on all sides, as well as a small pond with some fish in it.
There are also some fun sculptures of various animals around the tropical house, some more obvious than others, this gorilla greets you at the entrance and there’s this hippo which I spotted by chance as I was leaving since it’s almost hidden in the foliage.
Free to enter it’s a nice little place to visit if you’re at the park. You can find some more photos here.
Louise Jayne's Blog 