French Friday - Magnolia time at the Parc du Thabor, Rennes

I was in Rennes last week and went for a walk in my favourite park, taking my superzoom camera thinking I'd have a practice shooting birds, as they seem to be so much tamer in public parks than in the wild. As it happened, I was far more captivated by the sight of the magnificent Magnolia blooms and other tree blossoms, not to mention the formal spring bedding in the French garden which is reaching its peak now. I did capture a few birds which I've shown at the end of this post, but the flowers steal the show.

I hadn't actually intended to take photos for my blog; it wasn't until I downloaded the photos several days later that I realised I had taken so many! I wish now I'd taken a few more of the formal French garden, but if you'd like to see more pictures of, and info about, this park, and the beautiful buildings both within and surrounding it, I already featured it last year in this post which I made during Rhododendron season in May. In fact it is one of the most popular posts featured in the sidebar here.

This is such a beautiful park which is brimming with colour from April through to September. June will be the month that the early Roses start to bloom; the remontant varieties will continue all through to autumn and from high summer onwards there are the Dahlias too. Not to mention the botanical section and the formal bedding!

I won't caption these photos as I don't know the varieties of Magnolia and there seemed to be so many!

Below is a typical spring scene, with Magnolias at the top, the middle layer of colour are Pieris and I think Camelias, with Daffodils just flowering on and on in the foreground.

A couple of views of the formal French garden in front of the Orangerie.

An ornamental cherry of some sort!

This is one of my favourites, due to the different colours coming from the various stages of opening of the buds through to flowers. I'm pretty sure this is a Crab Apple. Now I wish I had one of these at home!

I did manage to capture a few birds, but these are fairly common birds.

Top: Left: Mr Chaffinch Right: Mrs Chaffinch looking coy
Middle: a Robin singing and looking a bit ruffled by the breeze
Bottom: Left: Jay and Right: Song Thrush 

You can click on these collaged photos (or indeed any of the images) to view larger.