Kew Gardens is 250 years old. Happy Birthday Kew. And now a confession ... despite being a born and bred Londoner, I've never visited.
Yet over the past year or so I've been drawn in. I visited their website and got asked to complete a survey. That led to more contact, and soon Kew zoomed the top of my wish list. Even better, at the top of my To Do list, for next time I'm back in London.
Maybe you're far away and can't get to go to Kew. But you can still enjoy it on the web.
Kew is perhaps the only botanical garden to have inspired a song - by Mary Hopkin (remember Those were the days? But this one's called Kew Gardens) Listen to it and take a video tour of the gardens now ...
Yet over the past year or so I've been drawn in. I visited their website and got asked to complete a survey. That led to more contact, and soon Kew zoomed the top of my wish list. Even better, at the top of my To Do list, for next time I'm back in London.
Maybe you're far away and can't get to go to Kew. But you can still enjoy it on the web.
Kew is perhaps the only botanical garden to have inspired a song - by Mary Hopkin (remember Those were the days? But this one's called Kew Gardens) Listen to it and take a video tour of the gardens now ...
Then obviously, there's their website - the surveys were to do with improving it. Though quite honestly I liked it as it was. But it's well worth a browse - click on the link.
And if you want to see all the things that Kew has to offer - not only strange or rare plants like the titan arum - the world's largest and smelliest flower - which bloomed in 2007,
but also the treetop walkway ...
the sculptures by Henry Moore ...
the peacocks, Canadian geese, Chinese pheasants and other birds which inhabit the gardens ...
... check out Kew Gardens on flickr, and in particular the photos of whatsthatpicture, whose photos are featured here, generously made available under Creative Commons licence.
And if you're feeling superior because you go there regularly, there's still more to explore. Check out this video (4 mins) on the BBC of the plants which aren't on display to the public.
Happy birthday Kew.
11 comments:
Nice tribute Sue. I remember Mary Hopkin. If you hadn't mentioned her song, I would have known as soon as she started singing. Thank goodness for grand gardens!
I hate I didn't visit when I was there. Oh well I will go back oneday
You just made me really homesick. I used to live within walking distance of Kew Gardens - a visit there was an absolute joy.
Lucky geese with beautiful flowers
I like the sculpture by Henry Moore. Oh, I remember the Greenwich Rose Garden in London. I was there many years ago. But I never went to Kew Gardens. Hmm... if I go London again, I will definitely visit this venue. Beautiful!
I've never visited any of Londons beatyful parks. I haven't visited London since I became a garden freak. But I do love that city and will surely go there again (hopefully soon) and then I know what I have to see. Thanks for charing this post / gittan
what a great post!
years ago, when i lived in london, i visited kew gardens. i'll hastily say that this was before i had even discovered that plants are anything else than edible! anyway, it was time for the smelly one to bloom and lots of people gathered... i couldn't stop laughing. i thought it was hysterical that people would come to experience such a horrific smell, let alone travel far for it. in the end i was banished :-D
Kew Gardens is wonderful & wonder-filled... i must return with my present self ;-)
Nice article and great shots!
Thanks Sue for sharing with us all these good links, videos and beautiful photos of Kew. Now, Kew is on my To-Go list too. Hopeful, I can visit London and Kew next year :)
I've been wanting to go to Kew Gardens ever since I "met" Virginia Woolf in college...looks so lovely :)
We used to visit now and again as children as we lived in Harrow, to the north-west of London, and I took my own children once on a visit to the capital. But it looks as though things there have improved a great deal since hose days!
Post a Comment