Tag Archives: Citron

Botanic Garden

Botanic Garden Drumshaped Tea Pots

August 5, 2014 Lia

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.

Portmeirionlore: Botanic Garden Soup Plates

July 27, 2014 Lia

The original Botanic Garden 8 inch Soup plates had the same motifs as the Bread and Butter plates:

The Trailing Bindweed, the Citron, the Daisy, the Spanish Gum Cistus, the Meadow Saffron and the Barbados Aloe.

The Trailing Bindweed here with the many-coloured butterfly.

The Citron:

The Daisy, simple and beautiful, an original motif that is available in Botanic Garden to the present day.

The Spanish Gum Cistus, one of my favourites:

The Meadow Saffron:

Here with real Meadow Saffrons:

The Barbados Aloe, together with the Citron retired too soon:

The Spring Gentian was the next motif on the Soup plates:

Later Soup Plate motifs:

The Small Narcissus, the Ivy Leafed Cyclamen, Snow-Drop and Crocus, the Trailing Bindweed (new version), the Barbados Cotton Flower and the Blue Primrose.

The Rhododendron, the Fuchsia, the Sweet William, Snow-Drop and Crocus (dark version), the Pansy and the Barbados Cotton Flower.

The Trailing Bindweed had a butterfly change, the later version with the yellow butterfly is still available in the Botanic Garden range:

The Barbados Cotton Flower had two versions in Soup plates:

The Snow-Drop and Crocus occurred in a darker and a lighter version:

The Sweet William is a salad plate motif, but here it is on a soup plate:

Here is a Barbados Aloe plate without the name:

There is a Mistletoe soup plate:

Ofcourse the Butterflies range had soup plates:

And here is the Do-It-Yourself Soup Plate:

Some soup plates were produced with dinner plate motifs:

Here are the Flowered Chrysanthemum, the Lily Flowered Azalea, the Sweet Pea, the Christmas Rose and the Afican Lily.

Of all the Soup plates the Spring Gentian is an all time favourite. It was among my first set of six soup plates, although I did not know then it was going to be such a rare motif.

Botanic Garden

Portmeirionlore: Botanic Garden Bread and Butter Plates

July 20, 2014 Lia

There were six original 7 inch Bread and Butter plates in the Botanic Garden range, when it was launched in 1972:

They were the Spanish Gum Cistus, the Trailing Bindweed, the Meadow Saffron, the Citron, the Daisy and the Barbados Aloe.

Most motifs were from The Universal Herbal, by Thomas Green, published ca. 1820:

The Meadow Saffron, here seen with the original:

The Trailing Bindweed has differences in the position of the lettering:

At one point the Trailing Bindweed had a butterfly change, the colorful old butterfly was replaced by a yellow and blue one:

The oldest versions of the Bread and Butter plates have the script writing, later versions have other lettering:

Here is the original set with the newer lettering:

Very soon there was a seventh motif on the Bread and Butter plates, the Spring Gentian:

Spring Gentians now are rare and hard to find. A pity, it is such a lovely motif, with its small, bright blue flowers.

Later Bread and Butter plates were

the Ivy Leafed Cyclamen, the Barbados Cotton Flower, the Blue Primrose, Snow-Drop and Crocus, the Pansy, the Fuchsia, the Small Narcissus, the Rhododendron and the Barbados Cotton Flower.

As can be seen, there are two versions of the Barbados Cotton Flower, one with three flowers and one with two:

There are also two versions of the Snow-Drop and Crocus, he older one being lighter, whereas the newer version has darker colours:

On the occasion of the 25th anniversary of Botanic Garden special sets were for sale, comprising of one cup and saucer and one bread and butter plate:

There were two different plates, the Snow-Drop and Crocus and the Small Narcissus. They had the special anniversary backstamp:

And here is my latest, the Arborea:

There are several motifs that occur not only on Bread and Butter plates, but also on Salad Plates, or on Dinner Plates, or on all three, such as the Pink Parrot Tulip :

There are more such sets of three;

They are the Flowered Chrysanthemum, the Virgins Bower, the Christmas Rose, The Honeysuckle and the Asiatic Magnolia.

Here are a few sets of Dinner Plates with Bread and Butter plates, the Lily Flowered Azalea, the African Lily and the Sweet Pea:

These are Salad Plate motifs on Bread and Butter Plates, the Garden Lilac, the Treasure Flower, the Dog Rose and the Eastern Hyacinth:

There were Bread and Butter plates without the Botanic Garden leaf border, here are the Trailing Bindweed, (new version) the Pansy, the Blue Primrose and the Fuchsia:

There is a Millennium Bread and Butter plate:

Portmeirion have the Botanic Roses range, one of the roses is the Portmeirion Rose:

Other sets of Botanic Garden Bread and Butter plates are the Flowers of the 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 Botanic Birds. They are the Chickadee, Ruby-Throated Hummingbird, Baltimore Oriole, Scarlet Tanager, Lesser Goldfinch and Western Bluebird:

and the Exotic Botanic Garden: Bird of Paradise, Moth Orchid, Winged Passion Flower, Hawaiian Hibiscus, Dragonfly , Red Ginger and White Waterlily:

And this one, a do-it-yourself plate perhaps?

Botanic Garden

Portmeirionlore: First Botanic Garden drumshape bowls

June 10, 2014 Lia

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…………