Kew Gardens

Christine Dudgeon, part of the social media team, is treating us to a visit to Kew Gardens in this post.

Located west of London, in Richmond, Kew Gardens is 300 acres of trees and shrubs and historic buildings. Kew has the most diverse collection of plants in the world including many rare species. Research, science, and education are important parts of Kew.

Temperate House

The Temperate House, built in 1860, was reopened in 2018 after five years of renovations.  It contains plants from the temperate regions of the world and has some species that are extinct in the wild, one that was grown from a 200-year-old seed, and many other rare species.

There are ten climate zones in the Princess of Wales Conservatory, each a separate climate-controlled room: orchid room, fern room, cactus room, carnivorous plant room are a few.

You open a door and go from hot dry desert… 

 …to dripping rainforest. See the colourful column in the background?

Bromeliads

This was one of the larger and most uniquely coloured flowers in the building. Jade vine Strongylodon macrobotrys from Philippine rainforests. It’s pollinated by bats in the wild.

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The Palm House, built in the 1840s, was the first large-scale glass structure using wrought iron. It houses the tropical plants that British explorers brought back from their expeditions.

The Davies Alpine House was designed to create the cool, dry, and windy conditions that alpine plants prefer, without using energy-intensive air conditioning and wind pumps. The plants are tended in a nursery and when they flower they are brought into the Alpine House so there is a constant rotation of the collection.

Waterlily House was built in 1852 to house Victoria amazonica, the largest waterlily. It is a short-lived perennial in the wild but in the Waterlily House it is grown each year from seed. Many other waterlilies, ferns, and papyrus are also found here.

There is too much to see in a day!

kew.org