My previous visit to Kew Gardens was in 2008 so it seemed like a good time to go back. I love a big garden and the weather forecast was looking good. Unfortunately, it was completely wrong and it ended up raining for most of our visit, but it was pretty light and didn’t stop us having a fun day out.
Luckily there are a lot of glass houses to hide from the rain in so we explored those first (after having some cake – I had lemon and courgette!).
You can’t really tell from this photo but those are giant lily pads.
I love water lilies so much.
Google tells me this is a bromeliad from the American tropics – it was definitely the prettiest flower we saw all day.
Typically, as soon as we paid for the road bus it stopped raining but at least it saved us some walking. We got off to look at this tree house but it isn’t open yet. Apparently it will have exhibitions inside. There’s also a lot of restoration going on so the pagoda and one of the glass houses are covered in scaffolding. I suppose that means I have a reason to go back sometime.
We ate our lunch by the lake with a lot of honking geese for company. We were a bit late for a lot of the flowering bushes but at least there was a lot of greenery.
This is The Hive, a temporary installation that lets you experience the life of bees. I’m glad we got to visit this as it’s really cool! It has sound and lights that react to vibrations from an actual beehive nearby.
It’s also just a really interesting structure to stand inside.
The only downer, apart from the rain, was all the planes! I really don’t remember there being this many planes overhead on my last visit and it’s so noisy. It does kind of spoil the garden atmosphere. I’d still go back though. You can see more of my photos from both visits at Flickr.
How to get to Kew Gardens
Kew Gardens is easy to get to by tube or train from central London. You can also get a river boat from Westminster, which we did last time. It costs a bit more but it’s cool to see all the bridges up close and all those famous buildings along the Thames.
