Kew Gardens

Sunday 12 August

After the glorious warm, sunny weather on Saturday (which I missed a sizeable chunk of being inside the gallery), I was anticipating another beautiful day on Sunday for our visit to the Royal Botanic Gardens, in Kew, South West of London. Alas, the sun was a little shy, and the weather not quite as good as it could have been. However, it did not detract from the beautiful gardens...all 300 acres of them!

We went on a free guided walking tour (considering the £12.25 admission fee, we were going to get something out of it!) for an hour which was a great introduction to the gardens, and a few pieces of interesting information we otherwise would not have known.

We visited the Temperate House, the Pagoda (a 10 storey octagonal building with each storey reducing in height and diameter), walked through the Ruined Arch (built to look ruinous...but now a little more ruinous than when it was built in 1759), past the Palm House (which closed before we could go in...ditto for the Princess of Wales Conservatory), through the Duke's Garden, past the Wollemi Pine in its cage, completely missed the Secluded Garden (perhaps not easily seen?) and into the Queen's Garden - the highlight of the day!

The Queen's Garden is a 17th century style garden situated behind Kew Palace. The plants are those exclusively grown before the 17th century, primarily for their medicinal qualities. The plants were labelled with their traditional uses, as outlined in 17th century herbals. An example: Blue Comfrey - 'the slimie substance of the root made in a posset of ale, and given to drinke against the pain in the backe, gotten by any violent motion, as wrestling, or overmuch use of women'. A handy one to note...