The Dolomites in mid-June 2022

March 5, 2023

Content

Ever since our trip to the Picos de Europa in May 2019 (see my diary entries), my wife Helen and I have wanted to visit the Dolomites. We booked to visit in June 2020, but this was cancelled because of CoVid. Finally, in mid-June 2022 we managed to get there. I have now posted a dozen daily articles describing this trip in detail.

Purpose of the Articles

I had three main intentions in posting these articles:

Firstly, I wanted to share my experience of visiting this wonderful place with those less fortunate who cannot travel there. The level of detail, and repeated plants, are because I am trying to recreate that experience.
I wanted to communicate how accessible the plants are in these mountains. You can reach many of these places by bus or cable car from the resorts, and you can see the plants on easy walking paths with little ascent or descent.
Finally, I wanted to make a detailed account of what we saw in each location, to assist other visitors to the area, and perhaps to provide a useful historical record.

Plant Identification

These diary entries aim to provide a record of what we saw. I have spent considerable time and effort since the trip trying to name correctly the plants I photographed; books and websites did not always yield a definitive answer. As well as the many books and obvious websites (the AGS Encyclopaedia), I have found the following useful:

the checklist of Italian flora here.
the flowers of the French Alps here (the plants are often the same).

A number of experts both within and outside the society have given generously of their time and expertise to help me. My thanks to them, and to everyone who helped make this holiday so enjoyable.

And still, grey areas remain. It remains intriguing to me that the flora of such a familiar and well-documented region can throw up so many puzzles. I am sure that many mistakes and confusions also remain (my own fault – please forgive me), and I welcome any feedback to discuss or correct these (my email address is below).

Locations

Our daily trips were as follows:

I hope you enjoy this adventure as much as we did.

Jon Evans

Jon lives and gardens on the north side of the Hogsback on the border between Hampshire and Surrey, on a heavy clay soil. He is a long standing member of the AGS and has been treasurer of the local group in Woking for many years. Jon is interested in bulbs of all sorts, particularly those from South Africa, and is progressing slowly towards his Gold Medal at shows, at the rate of roughly one first per year.

However, he is best known within the AGS as an enthusiastic amateur photographer. For about 10 years he was responsible for organising the artistic and photographic section of the AGS shows around the country, and also for organising the show photography. During this period, he set up and ran the AGS Digital Image Library. He still visits many shows each year to catalogue the extraordinary achievements of the exhibitors, and is actively involved in other plant photography, both in gardens both public and private, and on outings to view and photograph wild flowers in the UK.

If you have any comments or queries for Jon, you can contact him direct at agsdiary.photographer@agsgroups.org

Types

Photographer's Diary