Kew Gardens visit

Welcome to new followers!

I am catching up with myself after our long weekend away. Highlight was a day at Kew Gardens where my youngest son, wife and 2 year old joined us for the afternoon (they live in south London).

It was great and I can't wait to go again in another season!  It was £14 each to get in, £1 for a luggage locker for the day and we made the mistake of going in the Orangery for coffee which was expensive. later we joined the family in Four Peaks cafe which was more family orientated and a bit cheaper.

The lake and fountain near Victoria Gate

 The Palm House. the beds were empty ready for winter planting and were immaculate!

 We walked all round looking for the way in, expecting some formal entrance signs. In the end I tried one of the enormous iron and glass doors at random and that was it; you were in! Inside it was hot and steamy and a jungle.

Immediately glasses steamed up, cameras hated it! Husband's went on strike and mine kept turning off in protest.

You can go up spiral staircase to roof and be among the giant palms and bamboos.

My attention was caught by all the food products from these climates - black pepper, mango, sugar cane, bananas, ying yang, ginger.

Outside we wandered under and around the giant trees which were 300 years old plus. 

On the main broad walk we reeled in the perennial beds that have gone in this year. They were on Gardeners World a few weeks ago.  Decided this Himalayan grass was a must to have with our purple Verbena thing too!

Asters! Rudebeckia! wonderful!

 We then visited the Hive. It is a sculpture that has sound and lights reflecting the vibrations/activity in a bee hive somewhere near by. A guide was only too pleased to have a serious discussion with gardeners rather than sighing at the countless children who swarmed (like Bees).

The children loved the central glass hole. Later one of them cracked the glass floor and it was closed for the rest of the afternoon!

 Our grandson's appetite is much better these days and he had a whole cup thing of chips with chicken and a big box of strawberries ( Funny face, think mummy had chilled them a bit too much). His diary intolerance is not holding him back so much now.  The coat is his favourite colour. He is JCB digger insane. He found a mini one down the back where the Temperate house was being repaired and was overjoyed, more so that going on the Tree Top walkway or the Henry Moore sculpture!

 

There was a far amount of running and jumping around for the rest of the afternoon, while my son and I were messing about my camera got knocked across the roadway. That was the end of that. Never mind, we have a spare at home.

And so home - the whole weekend journey involved 2 buses, 8 trains, a tube and a taxi.  When we got off the train we found out our local bus service that runs every 20 mins throughout the day, every day,  has one bus at 6.20 (train missed it by 4 minutes) and one at 8 pm on a Saturday and that is it. What??
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