Hampton Court Palace and Gardens (14 Apr 25)

I have been a member of Historic Royal Palaces for a few years mostly because Hampton Court is close by (half an hour by bus, under an hour to walk) and also because my two sons live close to Tower of London. As with Kew Gardens, I use my membership to make multiple short visits often as part of a longer walk.

The excuse this time was the annual tulip festival.

Arriving just on 11am meant it was coffee and cake time which gave a good structure to the visit with the cafe at the north end of the extensive gardens and the formal beds at the south end, A pleasant stroll through the busy side garden, the one that leads on to Home Park, led to the magnificent view of the frontage facing the river and the largest of the formal gardens.

Next to the large formal garden is another glorious garden kept delightfully pristine and peaceful by not allowing visitors inside.

 

Throughout the gardens there were stunning borders to savour. This one is also on the south side, towards the end of my short tour, and there were similar displays in several other places.

I was at Hampton Court for a couple of hours, all of which was spent in the gardens or the cafe. It was a couple of hours very well spent and I will be going back for more soon.

Kew Orchids (8 Feb 25)

The Kew Gardens Orchid Festival is very much part of my annual calendar (and their's!) and I like to go early to see what it is like so that I have time to go again, and again, if it looks good.

Being a member of Kew Gardens I can go to the gardens any time for free (and take a guest) and as the Orchid Festival is free the only issue is getting tickets which are now required to manage numbers.

I would normally avoid a weekend but my sister and two of her friends wanted to come up from Dorset to see it so we had to go for a slot at 11am on a Saturday. There was a queue but we got in soon after the allotted time. 

Many people had obviously not been to Kew Gardens before, let alone the Orchids Festival, and initial progress was slow as people stopped to look at everything, even before we got to the Festival part of Princess of Wales Conservatory,

The crowd of people continued as we entered the first section as that is where the main display is. A lot of people were taking photos of themselves and of each other with the cascade of flowers behind them.

Walking slowly was not a great problem as we wanted to see and enjoy everything too. As always there was a mix of colourful flowers and model animals to make the festival fun for the whole family.

A one way system was in operation (again) taking us through to the temperate zone at the far end from where we had come in and here there was more of a focus on the models than the flowers.

Immediately after that we were back in the warmth and back amongst the flowers. The orchids delighted, as usual, in their colour and their variety. 

The final model display, just before the exit, was this spectacular whale shark.

We were a little hampered by people at times (any subsequent visits will be at quieter times) but not that much and it took us almost exactly an hour to complete the tour. An hour very well spent and hopefully yo be repeated.

RHS Hampton Court Palace Flower Show 2023

I had been to the more famous Chelsea Flower Show a few times but had only been to Hampton Court Palace Flower Show once before, and then only for an afternoon.

I was tempted back this year by my sister who was going with a friend of hers who is a member of RHS and so could take us all on a members' day.

My all-day pass cost me £38.85 each.

The three ladies went there by bus while I took the opportunity to both get a few steps under my belt while also checking out the best way to get in; the RHS instructions were good at showing the ways into the show grounds but less good at showing the ways into Hampton Court which you have to pass through first. 

In the end it was probably the wrong decision to go in via the main gate, the river gate would have been a shorter walk.

Hampton Court is different in style to Chelsea with less emphasis on show gardens and more on selling stuff. That meant that there were fewer things of obvious interest to me and I made getting ideas for ponds in my garden my priority.

There were several ponds though most of them were either too large, too formal or lacked the planting I want in my wildlife-friendly pond. 

That said, there were some nice things that I could copy, such as the way that the water flows down the big rock in the centre of this picture.

I found enough ponds that between them had the elements that I was looking for to convince me that the idea will work and to suggest how it could be implemented.

A short sharp shower forced me in to the Country Living marquee where I was swamped by all sorts of clothes, decorative items, foodstuffs and art that I would never dream of buying.

The show gardens were pretty, as you would expect, though they were relentlessly traditional with loads of wild flowers and I saw nothing strikingly modern that Chelsea is famous for.

Two things made getting around a little difficult, the layout and other people. 

There were site maps in several places but the site was quite fragmented and there was not an obvious route to take that included everything once and only once.

Despite being a members' only day the place was unbelievably packed and many of them where pulling small carts so moving around was like trying to cross Waterloo Station in rush hour.

It rained again too, only for a short while but enough to disrupt things. I was sitting down eating a vegan burger at the time! The burger was fine if a little pricey at £16.

After lunch we did the Floral Marquee and the stalls on the other side of The Long Water. Again Chelsea does this better, I liked the flowers on display but Hampton Court is a shop whereas Chelsea is a showroom.

Tired and having seen all that we wanted to see we left around 4pm reasoning it would be quicker, cheaper and nicer to have tea and cake at home.

With the pond project firmly in mind RHS Hampton Court was useful and with the show gardens it was also pretty but it felt like a lot of hard work and I suspect that it will be another few years before I am tempted back again.

Kew Orchids (18 Feb 23)

I made my second visit to Kew Gardens 2023 less than two weeks after the first. My excuse this time was that I had a visitor to take but no excuse was really necessary.

Knowing what to expect I was able to spend my time looking more closely at some of the things I had passed more quickly the first time and to take time to compose a passable photograph of one of the giraffes.

Of course the orchids were the point of the visit and, again, it was the variety of their shapes and colours that delighted me.

  

We also made a quick visit to Shirley Sherwood Gallery to see the extraordinary When Flowers Dream exhibition by Tanya Schultz. It was just as weird as it looks in the picture below and was well worth seeing because of that.

 

Kew Orchids (6 Feb 23)

I have been going to Kew Orchids for several years and for good reasons. I go to Kew Gardens regularly anyway because I have annual membership, it costs nothing additional to go to Kew Orchids (though a timed ticket is needed) and it is always very worth seeing.

Kew Orchids has changed a little in recent years, perhaps in response to covid-19 perhaps because of cost-cutting and perhaps a little of both, and there are now fewer orchids on display and the route through them is more regimented.

This may sound like it has become a lesser event but I would compare it to, say, Chelsea Flower Show where you have walls of flowers on display in the marque and gardens outside and Kew Orchids has moved from the large displays to embedding the orchids more into the rest of the glasshouse. I guess it is a question of preferences and I like the new approach.

Besides, it is still free so fewer orchids is still excellent value for money!

 

There are several major displays still and, as always, there is one in the pond soon after entering the glasshouse. The lion is magnificent and it is joined by some other animals in the pond.

 

The leopard is magnificent too. Animal models are a feature of Kew Orchids and they help to put the orchids into context, this year that context is Cameroon.

 

Of course there are still plenty of orchids to see and I have chosen just a couple of examples from the many photographs that I took to show their diversity of colour and patterning.

 

And, of course, I like to include some of the glasshouse in the background if I can because I love the architecture of it and the contrast between its straight lines and the curvaceous plants.

 

There was something unusual and unexpected at the end of the route with a few displays like this based on Cameroonian culture. Unusual and unexpected was a good way to end a lovely trail.

Kew Orchids (29 Feb 20)

My second visit to Kew Orchids this year was to take my sister there and it was a second visit that I was happy to make. In previous years, before long queues and ticketing, I would visit the exhibition several times; once in-depth and other passing visits because it was a pretty place to go.

We went for the first timed slot of the day, 10:30am, and the careful planning worked out very well. Our 65 bus arrived at Victoria Gate just after they opened at 10am and we were able to walk in via the members' queue with almost no waiting.

We ambled across to the Princess of Wales Conservatory knowing that we had half an hour to get there. Even ambling we were there in about fifteen minutes and were resigned to having to wait for another fifteen so we were very pleasantly surprised to be allowed in straight away. Not only did the remove the need for any queueing but it meant that we had forty five minutes before the next group would be allowed in.

The first big display of orchids was a series of arches in the large central section. Displays like this are best appreciated at a little distance (rather than admiring the individual flowers close-up) and that was a lot easier to do with not many people around. We were back there towards the end of our visit when it was a lot busier and there were several people patiently waiting for a gap in the crowd so that they could take the phots they wanted.

From there we took a necessarily circuitous route and tried to cover all of the main paths in all of the rooms without retracing our steps too often. Without planning, but with good knowledge of the building, I think we achieved that.

The festival seemed less intense this year with fewer staged displays and more flowers embedded in the existing beds. I liked that as I prefer the natural beauty of the individual flowers to the manufactured beauty of the displays.

As this was my sister's first visit to Kew Gardens when it was fully open (the Christmas Lights are a separate thing) we invented a route through the gardens and that worked well too. That had to start with a drink and some cake in the Orangery and from there we went to Rhododendron Dell, Minka House, Bamboo Garden, Sackler Crossing, Temperate House (mandatory) and, finally, The Pavilion to do some shopping.

It was a packed couple of hours and still left us with plenty to do on our next visit.

Kew Orchids (24 Feb 20)

The annual orchids festival at Kew Gardens is very popular and for several good reasons, orchids being the main one. This popularity has led to very long queues in recent years and to a timed ticket system this year.

I was able to avoid both by taking advantage of one of the early openings fo members which meant getting there by 9am, a time when I am normally thinking about having a second cup of tea in bed. The early start was something of a challenge but it did mean being in the conservatory when it was only busy rather than too busy.

The display seemed slightly muted this year, especially away from the central display and it only took me an hour (!) to see everything.

With fewer extravagant displays to grab my attention I was able to concentrate on the individual flowers; more of an opportunity than a problem. I picked this one photograph as an example of the delights on show.

Kew Orchids 2020 was certainly worth getting up early for.

Kew Gardens (11 March 18)

A week after the Orchids Festival I was back at Kew Gardens for a normal visit and that meant going in at Lion Gate and heading first for the Japanese Landscape which looks gorgeous at any time of the year.

The stones are as important as the planting and I love the way that they are raked. This must be done regularly to remove leaves etc. and it always looks pristine.

Nearby a couple of peacocks were celebrating Summer by showing off. The other male was having more success at that time and was close to the hen leaving this one to groom his feathers.

I went up the treetop walkway, as I usually do when in that corner of the gardens, and with no leaves to look at yet I had a close look at the Temperate House that was due to open later in the year.

Kew Gardens Orchids Festival 2018

Every year Kew Gardens has an orchids festival and every year I go to it. It is easy to see why.

They take over most of Princess of Wales Conservatory and this year they did so with a Thailand theme. That was shown in the designs, such as this temple, and in the music (not pictured).

As always I got there for the 10am opening on a Sunday and went straight to the conservatory. Everybody else was going to the same place so it was already lively by the time that I walked in but it was not too busy to be frustrating. Waiting for people to move out of the way of a photo you are trying to take can take a while particularly when they are oblivious to the situation.

There was no such problem with the many elevated displays. These also allowed me to capture some of the conservatory with the flowers, I like to mix the natural and the manufactured, and in this case I also included some of the paper lanterns in the shot.

It did not matter where the orchids were placed or how they were arranged, they always looked wonderful.

There are usually some animal objects of some king in among the flowers and while this year's elephant failed to impress me I did like the buffalo.

But the orchids were, rightly, the stars of the shows so it is only fair to finish with a closer look at some of them.

Petersham Open Gardens 2016

Every year several local gardens open for charity and this alternates between Ham (odd years) and Petersham (even years). By this rule it was Petersham's turn again in 2016.

Petersham is quite a small area but within that area there is a large number of lodges and manors because of the proximity of the (former) hunting grounds of Richmond Park and grand houses tend to have grand gardens.

The organisation of Petersham Open Gardens was good and they allowed six hours (11am to 5pm) for people to look around the twelve gardens. I did not expect to take all of that as I had seen most of the gardens before, often several times, so I started my tour at 1pm and just managed to see all twelve  before they closed.

I've chosen just a few of my favourite photos I took that day to give a flavour of what was on offer and to explain why it took four hours to see everything.

Petersham Lodge is one of the grandest of the grand houses that opened their gardens. Normally I would show a picture of the large pond as that is the main feature of the garden so this time I have chosen to highlight another part of the large and varied garden.

This is a little enclave close to the house. It had been full of hedges and gravel on my previous visits and this time both had been refreshed. This mean that the garden was closed to visitors and we had to be happy with peeking into it. An advantage of that was that there were no other visitors in it to spoil the view.

Montrose House is another one of the grandest houses with a large and eclectic garden which included a pink and a blue elephant and other assorted animal sculptures. Again I, and others, have shown them many times so I have gone for a more traditional scheme.

There is a sheltered spot in the garden in a corner created by the house and a large garden room and this is where the large water feature resides. The water flows gently from the top level and then away from the plinth in a couple of narrow channels next to the flower beds. A lovely place to sit.

What I liked most about the garden in Harrington Lodge was the large brick patio running along the back of the house. Here it is enhanced by an old pot and some colourful flowers.

On a similar theme, bricks and flowers, I liked this low wall in Downlands. The rusted metal globe helped too.

Next to Downlands, but confusingly accessed via a different road, was Arreton Cottage which easily had the most interesting things in it of all the gardens. This selection is just an example of the varied things on display. The picture also shows the care with which the objects were arranged.

Elm Lodge was another large garden with several different areas, including pigs and chickens, and it was the water feature at the side of the house that I found the most attractive. This had three pools at three different levels and it is the top level that is featured here with its wonderful heron.

I love the stone ball too. This marks the gateway between the top two levels with the water slowly flowing up and left as we look at it. The other water was flowing lightly from the sky and was rippling the pools with raindrops.

The rain was not much of a deterrent and I carried on exploring Elm Lodge until the bewitching hour of 5pm when, after four hours of walking around gardens, I treated myself to a bus home. It had been a fantastic afternoon and a testament to the power of gardens and gardeners.

An early stroll through Kew Gardens (22 May 16)

I have been a member of Kew Gardens for several years and have taken advantage of that membership to go as frequently as I can. Most of my visits have been first thing on Sunday mornings to see as much of the garden as possible

Now membership has got even better with the gardens opening at 8am for members, a full two hours before the general public is allowed in. Enjoying the gardens when they are quiet has got a lot easier.

It was the right time of year to visit the Alpine Gardens as a lot of the plants were in bloom.

The large waterfall (there are several) in the Alpine Gardens is the main physical feature there and it has its own viewing platform to appreciate it from. I do that often but this is a pleasure best not shared and the absence of people walking and talking meant there were no distractions from the falling water.

This is possibly the best place to be during the early openings.

I took this picture to show off the pretty roof line of the Princess of Wales Conservatory and the way that it sits easily with the trees around it.

I still prefer the older glasshouses and am counting down the days until the Temperate House opens again in 2018, meanwhile the Princess of Wales Conservatory is doing an admiral job and I find myself going there quite often. I have yet to find an easy route through it, and that is one of its charms.

At times it felt like the opening scenes of 28 Days Later with nobody to be seen in places that are normally bustling with activity. This is the Sackler Crossing devoid of people.

I prefer to go on the Treetop Walkway when it is quiet because  I can take it at my own pace and not worry about other people trying to get past me as I pause to look at something. It is not that wide and my caution of heights means that I prefer to walk sedately down the middle so anything which disturbs my progress makes me a little edgy.

There were no such problems on this morning as the only other group up there with me were well in front of me and were on the way back down before I had got half way round. Being alone meant being more comfortable and more able to appreciate the trees, which is why the walkway is there.

Returning towards Victoria Gate I walked around the Temperate House (under reconstruction) and onto Pagoda Vista, named for obvious reasons. This is one of the three main vistas that form a triangle around the lake and they are normally too full of people for me to be tempted to use them. Not this day.

The early openings at Kew Gardens are a very big enhancement to an already good deal. Membership now qualifies as a "no brainer".

Kew Gardens (13 May 16)

I took advantage of my time between jobs and the early opening for members to go for a good walk through Kew Gardens visiting most of the highlights when there were few other people there to distract me.

I had to go in via Victoria Gate as that is the only one that is open early and from there I turned right with no real plan other than to see lots of things and to walk at a brisk pace to cover a decent distance.

I'll admit to one sad fact about me that drove some of this behaviour. I use the Swarm/FourSquare app on my photo to check in to places and this was my chance to become "mayor" of a few more places within Kew Gardens by checking-in there more that anyone else; I am currently mayor of several places including the Palm House and the Sackler Crossing. Other people play that game too and I lose some of my mayorships from time to time and that just makes me determined to revisit those places next time that I am in Kew. One of the reasons that I play the game is to give me some places to head for every time that I go to Kew - it is a way of making a plan for each visit.

As always I took quite a few photographs, 76 on this occasion which is fairly typical, and I had some difficulty in whittling it down to just ten to show the highlights. The obvious reason for this is there are lots of highlights in Kew Gardens and this morning I visited most of them.

The Princess of Wales Conservatory is probably the place that benefited the most from the early start as it is normally full of people and the layout means that they are always in the picture. Even today there was somebody, but only one. The splodge of blue on the left is another early visitor.

This corner of Kew Gardens, in the north-east corner, is always quiet, even on busy days, though that was no excuse for ignoring it when the whole gardens were quiet. I like the structures here and being on the edge of the gardens this a place to go to extend the walk.

The appearance of the gallery by the main gate on Kew Green (Elizabeth Gate) was helped considerably by the thick bed of tulips next to it. I love dark tulips and every time I see them I am reminded of the bag of bulbs that I bought in a flower market in Amsterdam that promised such things but only produced yellow flowers.

The Queen's Garden behind Kew Palace was looking especially lovely with more tulips, this time pink and white. The Palace hides this garden from the rest of Kew so it is another place that is usually quiet and quietness suits it.

I took this picture to show what most of Kew Gardens looked like that morning. It is sometimes easy to focus on the landmarks and forget the wide expanses like this that are the true heart of Kew.

I have seen the peacocks in Kew many times but they had never been this compliant before. Perhaps they were also appreciating the quiet morning.

It is the structure of the Japanese Landscape that makes it so pleasant and there is normally no colour there. The splotches of red transformed its appearance, if only for a few weeks.

I had to go on the Rhizotron and Treetop Walkway as I always to when in that quarter of Kew Gardens. The structure shakes a little as people tramp around it and so, while I know that the structure is completely safe, I am more comfortable when I am alone up there.

The vistas are another defining feature of Kew Gardens and this is the Syon Vista looking away from the Palm House and across the river to Syon House. On the right the roses are not yet ready for their turn to show off.

The Palm House looked as imperious as ever and the Parterre as lovely.

It was a great way to spend a Friday morning and comfortably justified the early start.