Back to Kew Gardens (October 2010)

No sooner had my annual season pass for Kew Gardens arrived and I was back there, just a month after my previous visit.

This time I chose to enter by the Lion Gate and to explore the west end of the gardens which feels like a country park with its emphasis on trees rather than flowers.

And no country park would be complete without a lake and Kew duly obliges.

The wildfowl love it here and many of them were busy making nests or scaring other birds away from where they were thinking of making one.

This section of the park is quieter than most and is furthest from the road so it is easier to forget that you in a city, though the constant drone of planes heading for Heathrow somewhat destroy that illusion.

The lake runs alongside an a wide avenue of trees that leads from the river towards the Palm House. This one of the sides of a triangle that also includes paths to the Pagoda.

The Palm House is one of the three large greenhouses in Kew Gardens and while it is certainly worth a visit it is the least impressive.

My favourite greenhouse is the large Victorian Temperate House because of its magnificent architecture but the Princess of Wales Conservatory is also impressive because of its interesting internal layout.

The Palm House, like the Temperate House, has a high-level walkway that lets you get up close to the extraordinary large leafs. It also has ridiculously elaborate decoration which helps get past the general tired and worn out look. This greenhouse needs some TLC.

The sole purpose of getting annual membership at Kew Gardens was to make it possible to do short regular visits like this one, so it is so far so good.