At Kew Gardens

On Sunday 25 April we visited Kew, myself for the first time, Christine for her second visit in 30 years.
I so wished that I had seen this place as a youth. I would have moved heaven and earth to work there. It would have been an inspiration to follow an interest I had that was never realised.

The Palm House.


Beautiful Euphorbia.
The Palm House earlier that same afternoon.
It was wonderful to see possibly the largest and oldest pot plant in the World. This cycad was brought from the African tropics by Masson specifically for Kew over 200 years ago.

The prunus was in full blossom and being much admired.
The Temperate House from a refreshment room.
The Temperate House from the treetop walk.

A full-grown Acer.
It was great to see elms at Kew. This one is native to Iran, I think and is a specie (or is it variety) which must be immune to Dutch elm disease .

I recall an edition of Gardeners' Question time back in the 1960s in which Prof. Alan Gemmel of the University College of North Staffordshire explained, as a research expert on the subject, that Dutch elm disease was, eventually, going to kill off most of the native elms in the British Isles. Sounded either far-fetched (my dad's view) or prophetic. Gemmel may not have been entirely correct in his prediction, but the population of native elms has been devastated. Read the Forestry Commission analysis.

Next time we must explore all the areas we did not have time to see at all or properly, such as the Alpine House below and the splendidly exciting rock garden.
Then there is the Marianne North Gallery to visit. She was, I think, the first woman known to have circumnavigated the globe and the gallery which she financed houses her botanical paintings. The style might not be RHS approved, but it is rather exciting.

The worst part of this trip to Kew? The return journey by tube because the District was closed due to a bomb scare and so our train all got onto the Piccadilly. It was a terrible crush.