In 2013 Portmeirion introduced a new dinner plate in the Botanic Garden range, the Sunflower:
The Sunflower also appears on mugs and jugs:
Here the Sunflower is on three different plate sizes:
Apart from the large salad bowl, still missing here, there is a 5.5 inch salad bowl:
and an 8 inch pasta bowl:
It is a delightful flower in the Botanic Garden
The original six footed egg cups in the Botanic Garden range were: Heartsease, Speedwell, Rhododendron, Common Tomentil, Scarlet Pimpernel and Forget-me-Not.
The Scarlet Pimpernel occurs in various shades of red.
The Common Tomentil was later replaced by the Yellow Jasmin.
The Rhododendron has two versions, one with an extra butterfly:
The butterfly is on the back, and seems to fill a gap in the motif:
The original Botanic Garden egg cups had a different shape altogether:
Most of my egg cups have the old backstamp:
There are some egg cups about without the leaf border:
The footed egg cups are beautiful and practical, we use them a lot
When the Botanic Garden range was launched in 1972 it had drumshaped tea pots:
The first tea pots had the Spanish Gum Cistus on one side:
and the Trailing Bindweed on the other:
Later other motifs appeared on the tea pots as well:
There were two sizes in the tea pots, a 7 inch pot containing 2.25 pints and a smaller 6 inch pot containing 1.5 pints.
The smaller pots also had the Spanish Gum Cistus on one side, but the Daisy on the other:
Other motifs on the Tea Pots were the Citron:
The Barbados Aloe:
The Trailing Bindweed:
The Meadow Saffron:
Since we only use the pots for tea, we call them Tea Pots, but they could be used as Coffee Pots as well. For a long time they were the only Botanic Garden Coffee Pots:
Here are the Rhododendron, the Barbados Cotton Flower, the Ivy Leafed Cyclamen and the Snow-drop and Crocus, all the larger size.
The Trailing Bindweed had a change in butterflies, not only on the plates but also on the tea pots:
I have one teapot with the Garden Lilac on both sides, and a differently shaped lid:
Here are my small tea pots seen from one side:
and from the other side:
There is one tea pot I would really like to add to my collection, the one with the Spring Gentian, but so far I have not managed to get one.
When the Botanic Garden range was launched in 1972 these were the original 8 inch salad plates:
They are the Water Melon, the Night Flowering Cactus, the Dog Rose, the Red Pepper, the Eastern Hyacinth and the Woody Nightshade. These motifs also appeared on the original 13 inch platters. They have all been retired now. I am very fond of the dark reds, greens and browns, the insects and the almost scary flowers of these early motifs.
Some of the original salad motifs had two versions, such as the Eastern Hyacinth, first with brown butterflies and then blue ones:
And the Woody Nightshade, originally with a dark brown butterfly and a huge bumble bee:
There is a double version of the Spanish Gum Cistus, a motif that appeared on the soup plates and the bread and butter plates:
The double Spanish Gum Cistus looks really well on a salad plate:
The Cistus later appeared in a pink version, the Purple Rock Rose:
The Slender Columbine also has two versions:
In 1981 a special series of salad plates was commissioned by Bloomingdales in New York. 250 plates with the Eastern Hyacinth and 250 with the Dog Rose , all with a gold leaf border, were specially produced. Mine has the Eastern Hyacinth:
The backside has a special backstamp for the osccasion:
More salad plates :
The Treasure Flower, the Sweet William, the Belladonna Lily, the Purple Rock Rose, the Blue Iris and the Garden Lilac. Of these, the Treasure Flower was the pink version of the African Daisy, one of the original dinner plate motifs:
The Garden Lilac appeared on a millennium plate in 2000:
A few salad plates, including the Garden Lilac, were also produced without the Botanic Garden leaf border:
the Blue Iris, the Eastern Hyacinth and the Sweet William:
Other salad plate motifs are the Poppy, introduced in 2014,
the Pink Parrot Tulip and the Hydrangea :
The Blue Hydrangea plates:
Botanic Garden has a range of Christmas plates called Mistletoe:
In 1998 Portmeirion introduced Options, a new addition to the Botanic Garden range, complementary pieces that can mix and match with existing Botanic Garden items.
As a collector I thought I should have at least one Options plate in my collection, here it is:
The new Exotic Botanic Garden range also has the 8 inch salad plates, featuring the Hawaiian Hibiscus, the Moth Orchid, the White Waterlily,the Red Ginger, the Bird of Paradise and the Dragonfly:
And the Botanic Birds also have salad plates. They are the Ruby-Throated Hummingbird, Baltimore Oriole, Chickadee, Lesser Goldfinch, Western Bluebird, and Scarlet Tanager:
In the last few years several dinner plate motifs have also appeared on salad plates, such as the Shrubby Peony, the Christmas Rose, the Foxglove and the Virgins Bower:
Here are the Asiatic Magnolia, the Flowered Chrysanthemum and the Honeysuckle:
A special range of 8 inch plates was produced in the nineties, the Christmas Plates:
Starting in 1993 with the Christmas Rose, followed by the Shrubby Peony, the Flowered Chrysanthemum, the Virgins Bower, the Blue Passion Flower, the Honeysuckle, the Lily Flowered Azalea
and the last one, in 2000, the Sweet William:
The Butterflies were specially made for the USA:
The Daisy usually appears on soup plates and bread and butter plates:
Here is a rare example of an 8 inch salad plate in the Ladies Flower Garden range with a Botanic Garden leaf border:
The following plates have the Botanic Garden leaf border with Pomona motifs, the Roman Apricot and the Late Duke Cherry:
The following plates have a Variations motif combined with a Botanic Garden leaf border:
These salad plates have different shapes:
and there is this one
Botanic Garden always has had a great variety of planters and plant pots. Here are three small pots made for Kew Gardens:
These have the Forget Me Not, the Rhododendron and the Speedwell.
Here are my favourite 4 by 5 inch pots, with the original oatmeal motifs:
Thet are the Ivy Leafed Cyclamen, the Orchid, the Purple Iris, the Canterbury Bells, the Barbados Cotton Flower and the Orange Cactus.
Portmeirion also had boxed planters or cache pots, here seen with the Common Tomentil:
The backside of the box advised which plants they were meant for:
Here is a bell-shaped planter with the Trailing Bindweed:
Although many planters have the Botanic Garden motifs there are also Pomona planters, here seen with the Ingestrie Pippin, the Imperatrice Plum and the Red Currant:
and Birds of Britain planters, such as here with the Nuthatch:
The Spring Gentian can also be found on planters:
Botanic Garden has a range of Cups and Saucers with Bread and Butter Plates featuring a different flower for every month:
They are: January – Snowdrop, February – Sweet Violet, March – Wild Daffodil, April – Primula, May – Bluebell, June – Dog Rose, July – Pinks, August – Pansy, September – Aster, October – Dahlia, November – Bell Heather, December – Hellebore.
The saucer has the same flower as the cup and the plate:
September
October
November
They are a festive set for a joyful occasion:
In 1973 the first set of dinnerware in the Portmeirion range had several drumshaped dishes or tureens, as well as the Meridian shaped soupbowls. They have the old motifs with dark coloured butterflies.
The low dish in the front of the picture only occurs in the oldest sets, and I have only seen it with the Citrus.
The bowls come with the same motifs as can be seen on the teacups, the lids have the Strawberry Tree and the Yellow Foxglove:
The soup bowls also have the same motifs as the teacups:
The Scarlet Pimpernel, Forget-me-not, Rhododendron, Common Tomentil, Heartsease and Speedwell. The bowls are quite large, therefore large butterflies were added to fill up the empty space on the cups. The bowls came with white saucers with the leafed border.
Three different sizes of jugs were part of the set, the smaller two with the Spring Gentian, the larger also with the teacup motifs:
Spectacular butterflies…………
The Yellow Foxglove is an early motif that was depicted on 8 inch drum shaped tureen lids and on planters.
I only once saw it on a large mug, this is it:
The mug has the mustard coloured oval backstamp. I expect it is another trial. But a very nice one!
In 1972 the original Botanic Garden range had six 13 inch oval plates and one 15 inch platter with the African Daisy:
The motifs on the 13 inch platters were the same as on the first 8 inch salad plates: Woody Nightshade, Water Melon, Red Pepper, Night Flowering Cactus, Dog Rose and Eastern Hyacinth.
Of two of these platters I also have an 11 inch version the Water melon and the Dog Rose:
The Woody Nightshade has a version without the extra butterflies:
There is another early 15 inch platter with a lovely double version of the Mexican Lily:
The African Daisy platter later appeared in a version with more flowers, in brighter colours:
There are also 11 inch oval plates, featuring the salad plate motifs:
The motifs here are Treasure Flower, Dog Rose, Water Melon, Eastern Hyacinth and White Gum Cistus.
Another 11 inch oval plate features the Slender Columbine:
Portmeirion also produced 19 inch fish platters with spectacular motifs. The oldest was a combination of the Blue Passion Flower and the Dog Rose:
Later the fish platter featured the Austrian Lily, which was only produced from 1990 to 1993:
Aren’t they wonderful?
Here are the beautiful Pomona salad bowls:
The motifs on these 5.5 inch bowls are: White Dutch Currant, Imperatrice Plum, Wild Blackberry, Late Duke Cherry, Queen of Sheba, Red Currant, Biggerraux Cherry, Teinton Squash Pear, Wilmots Early Red, Shropshire Damson, Hazel Nut, Ingestrie Pippin, Hoary Morning Apple, Grimwoods Royal Peach.
Here is the Wilmots Early Red, one of the Gooseberries. There is also the Queen of Sheba:
They are early motifs, retired soon after the range was launched.
The Hazel Nut is another early motif:
The Ingestrie Pippin, one of my favourites:
Here are the early Biggerraux Cherry and the Late Duke Cherry:
The White Dutch Currant was replaced by the Red Currant:
They are wonderful to look at and look great with a fruit salad.
There are also 5 inch salad bowls:
I have two different Hazel Nut bowls, one motif is much larger than the other:
Also one bowl has the leaf border, the other is borderless:
I am still hunting for more different motifs.
