Post a random picture about your country

[Graham]

Scottish Villages on Google Street View.

Kirkcudbright

http://goo.gl/maps/1QaV6

Falkland

http://goo.gl/maps/s3izx

Plockton

http://goo.gl/maps/cWicC

[evon]

30 mins by car from my house today:

[Sisak]

storm "Bura" on the Croatian coast and Velebit area

[Linet]

[Graham]

Brave Cartoon comes to Glasgow

[RussiaPrussia]

"perfect" answer which some people may not like.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chechnya#Ethnic_groups

like this?

[Albion]

Do hydrangeas spread on their own in the Azores? I always presumed the mophead hydrangeas to be sterile cultivars and the flathead ones to be the only fertile Hydrangea macrophylla. All I ever see in pictures of the Azores are the mophead ones, but I don't see how they could be pollinated and have never seen any set seed.
How do they spread then? Were many planted in the past? To an extent they could spread from roots just spreading through the ground, but they couldn't spread to far that way.
We have them here in Britain where they also do very well but I've never seen them spread without human help and never seen seeds on them. The flatheads would perhaps be able to spread naturally by seed but aren't as commonly planted.

[Albion]

There's a small tea (Camellia sinensis) plantation in Cornwall too, the only one in the UK and probably one of the only ones in Europe outside of the Azores.
A few species of Camellias are hardy enough to survive winters in Western Europe (Iberia to British Isles and Benelux). Camellia sinensis is among them. It's flowers are rather bland and the leaves that are dried for tea are its real use.
Camellia japonica is more often grown for its large, rose-like and early flowers, although many Camellia species can also be used to make a sort of tea. The plant is hardy in most of Britian, but the flowers (like most flowers) are not and the buds and flowers can be killed in spring frosts which limits its cultivation in Europe because it flowers very early in late winter and early spring and does nothing for the rest of the year. This effectively means it is only widespread in places that only get a few slight frosts - it's distribution in the British Isles is along the west coast, particularly in mild climates like Cornwall and Devon.

As for tea in Europe, mild, wet areas of western Europe have a good climate for it but to plant it on a large scale wouldn't be economically feasible and the land could be put to better uses. A few niche producers making expensive, luxury teas is a good idea though and we could do with a few more small producers in Cornwall and Devon.
Our only tea plantation at Tregothnan in Cornwall markets its produce as 'English tea' - some Cornish nationalists would disagree with that statement. It could probably be marketed successfully in the UK as 'Cornish tea', but internationally Cornwall isn't widely known outside of Europe.
Camellia sinensis like many crops actually gives a more distinctive flavour in cooler climates. The best Asian teas come from mountainous areas with cooler climates. The reason is that plants don't grow at such a fast pace in cooler climates and so develop more of a flavour.





http://www.independent.co.uk/life-st...a-7966301.html

[Permafrost]

[Albion]

Pictures from my county (Cheshire)

Chester, the capital.