While visiting London, I went to the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. Located in Richmond in the west of London, Kew gardens is a UNESCO world heritage site that became a botanic garden in the 1800’s.

History

Kew gardens were originally two different Royal estates. The first was Richmond Gardens, owned by Queen Charlotte. The second, Kew, was owned by Princess Augusta and Prince Frederick. As Europeans were travelling further afield, both gardens began displaying plants from countries that these explorers visited. In 1840, the gardens were given to the British nation by the Crown, with Sir William becoming the first Director of the 132 hectare site.

Ever since, people have enjoyed visiting these rather large and lovely gardens and scientists have been carrying out research with the aim of understanding, and protecting plants.

My visit

On a wonderfully sunny day in London, I took myself off to Kew Gardens and I, as I didn’t really know where to look first, I decided to head towards the Agius Evolution Garden first.

This garden is designed to do three things:

• Explain how plants are currently classified through analysis of DNA
• To have an attractive garden that shows flowering plants in all their glory, while still maintaining the purpose of the garden
• A garden that makes sense to visitors and also explain plant evolution to those that pass through

I think it does all three well, especially attractive part. I didn’t really know where to look with all the flowers looking so good in the sun.

I then headed to the kitchen garden. I liked this garden too, where there were several varieties of several different vegetables. I just wish I had this sort of space to grow things in!

The rock garden was a pleasant area to be in. It was really quiet as I walked through. This may have been because it was still relatively early in the day, but I enjoyed the peace her as much as the plants.

I then went pottering over to the Princess of Wales Conservatory, which I really enjoyed. From the purple-pink passionflower to the really interesting red flower of Etlingera elatior, or red touch ginger to massive water lily leaves-it’s full of interesting plants I could spend a lot of time looking at.

Plants in here come from ten climate zones and include plants like cacti, the titan arum, Amorphophallus titanium, and Venus flytraps.

I then went to the Palm House and its surrounds. The Palm House has rainforest plants in it, along with plants that have had a large impact on our lives at some point, including the rubber tree, Hevea brasiliensis.

The Temperate House was next, with plants coming from Asia, Australasia, South Africa and the Americas. Due to the range of plants in the Temperate House, I really enjoyed walking around it. There were interesting flowers, leaves, trunks and seed pods to look at.

The Temperate House was followed by the Marianne North Gallery and Shirley Sherwood Gallery of Botanical Art, both of which had some fabulous drawings in them-a skill I wish I had, but rather sadly lack!

One of the joys of Kew gardens is that they are rather massive, so if you are in the fortunate position of living relatively closely, you can purchase an annual membership and visit many times to explore as often as you like. For me, living on the other side of the world, I can’t do that, unfortunately. Due to the gardens size and a time limit due to evening plans, I didn’t have the time to see everything (if if I had enough energy, which was starting to fade a little after about four hours of exploring). Several areas were missed off, mainly things south-eastern corner, but also the children’s garden, Kew Palace itself and the woodland area.

While walking between the main ‘attractions’ of the gardens mentioned above, there were lots of other plants to see, especially trees. These are as interesting as anything else I saw at Kew.

I always enjoy a walk around gardens, and walking around Kew was no different. I had a throughly good day, enjoying the sunshine and fresh air. It was also great to see so many birds, bees and other wildlife around the gardens, it was really nice to see. I will talk about my favourite plants from Kew Gardens individually over the next few weeks as I get time.