Kew Gardens. View of Temperate House from Treetop Walk.

Went to Kew Gardens on a visit organised by our university, for a planned talk with David Barnes, manager of horticulture support. Embarrassingly as a Londerer and landscape gardner it was my first visit, so took the opportunity to arrive early and experience the gardens. Being a bit chilly on the day i first went to get a cup of tea from the Victoria Plaza and browsed around the great selection of books on offer. At the rear entrance of the plaza was a display of work called Art On Demand which i have already mentioned opposite a piece of sculpture constructed from different types of wood called The Kew Mural by Robert.h.Games commemorating the storm of 1987 when a 1000 trees where damaged or destroyed at Kew whose detail and imagery i enjoyed.
Leaving the plaza and walking towards the Palm House it was easy to feel the history of Kew. Still being before midday the sun had yet to break through the cold heavy air that hung around the trees, temples, glass houses and with very few people about it was easy to imagine another time. The Palm House was amazing, the variety, heights of the plants and the tremendous Victorian architecture and engineering. The first thing i wanted to do was climb the spiral staircase, the precision and attention to detail of the glasshouse structure, its layout allocating plants to the continent to which they belong all provided a sense of order and knowledge very typical of that era. Its a shame that most contemporary buildings do not receive the same level of focus, it now seems to be about maximum return for minimum input. Continuing my walk i headed for the relatively recent construction of the Davies Alpine house (March 2006) which we had discussed in class and whose development along with other aspects had been centered around sustainability and been inspired by the form and workings of termite hills. On the way i passed the Rock Garden with its cascading waters, witnessed the meticulousness of the Order Beds from the Temple of Aeolus, strolled through the Woodland Garden and admired the spectrum of Dogwoods beside the pond of Museum House.
From the Alpine House i made my way to Kew Palace in along the northern boundery of the gardens. Also known as Dutch house from the original Dutch merchant owners who built the house in 1663. It was purchased by George II to house his increasing family and was home at one time to Frederick, Prince of Wales and his sisters. Painted a reddish orange the palace can be seen from a distance, standing out like a sore thumb. With four floors and roughly 35 metres wide, the building is set amongst private gardens and is another example of the time capsules illustrating Kew’s past. What is now Kew Gardens was once the home of two distinct Royal families, separated by a public right of way. It was George the III, son of Frederick whose mother Augusta initiated the conception of Kew Gardens with a site to accommodate the many botanical gifts they received from around the world and Queen Victoria who started donating large sections of the gardens to the public after years of neglect.
My next stop was Rhizotron and Xstrata Treeetop Walkway, completed in May 2008 it has already had 477,000 visitors. Built on 12 x 18m towers of 400 tonnes of corten steel, the structure designed Marks Barfield of the London Eye took six months to construct, providing the visitor with the unique experience of being amongst the atmosphere of the tree tops as well as giving stunning views of Kew Gardens. One word of warning, those who suffer slightly from vertigo, don’t look down.
It was now two o’clock in the afternoon and time for our scheduled talk with David Barnes (which i have wrote about in another blog), after which it was time to go home via Evolution and Temperate Houses, watch the initiation of a few bumps and bruises on the ice skating rink and bid farewell to Kew gardens for today. At the exit i met with another of our lecturers who expressed his disappointment that this was my first visit to Kew and he was right. I had only experienced a brief section of the Gardens which had so much to offer on a cold day in December, let alone in spring, summer and autumn when it reveals its other beauties. I definitely will not leave it as long this time.

The garden is being gradually restored to its 17th-century splendour.  The 1671 plan by Slezer and Wyck, on display in the Library Closet, shows proposal for the garden which were largely executed.  This formed the basis for the reconstruction of the garden in 1975.

Parterres and plats.

At the east side of the house, lavender, box, and yew hedges, flanked by Hornbeam arbours, have been introduced to the Cherry Garden.  The South Terrace border has been replanted in a formal 17th-century style.  Cones of Yew alternate with clipped flowering shrubs, including such exotics as Hibiscus and Pomegranates.  Three rows of herbaceous planting complete the effect.  Below the terrace are eight grass plats surrounded by gravel walks.

Beyond this is the Wilderness, a formal maze-like planting of hedges of Hornbeam, concealing compartments containing four circular summerhouses.

The Orangery.

The Orangery garden lies beyond the west garden wall.  At its north end stands the Orangery, one of the oldest freestanding examples in England.  It now serves as a cafe.  In front of stands the oldest ‘Christ’s tnorn’ bushes in the country.  At the south end of the garden is an avenue of Quercus ilex, evergreen oak.  The avenue represented at one time the centre pathway of the original kitchen garden.

hamhouse@nationaltrust.org.uk.