Key Gardens: A Few Highlights

With my time at Oxford drawing to a close, the pressure to do all the things on my UK bucket list has been growing. I likely will not manage to visit the Peak or Lake District, or make a road trip through Wales, but there are a few destinations closer to home that have already made the cut or will do so imminently. One of these places are the Royal Gardens in Key. Located at quite a distance from central London, they are not among the most natural candidates for inclusion on a day trip, which is why my visit to Kew has been put off multiple times. However, with spring blooming into summer, I have finally made the decision to put aside the day for this visit.

Johnny and I made our journey on Monday, taking the bus to Shepherd’s Bush and calling an Uber for the second leg. The alternative would have been to spend another hour on public transport, connecting to the metro and another bus. The weather was beautiful, so I was glad it was a Friday and not the weekend, else the hordes of elderly tourists would have been doubly reinforced by hordes of everyone else.

We spent a good few hours at Kew taking in the beauty of both the buildings and the plants. The main greenhouse at Kew stands just close enough to the lake for its reflection to appear on the water’s surface, framed by purple irises. Also remarkable is the sail-like spine of the Alpine house and the sheer scale of the ten floor Chinese pagoda. As for the plants, I have already forgotten the names of many I enjoyed seeing. The most memorable event, however, was when a swan bullied a few Canadian geese away from a lake that it doubtlessly believed itself to own.

Later in the afternoon, we took another Uber to Hampton Court. We originally intended to go inside but with entry tickets priced at 20 pounds, we decided that unless the place contained the mummified child of the Virgin Queen, it was not worth the money. Instead, we took in all the views we could get from the outside and proceeded to Bushy Park. The place was practically infested by majestic deer, whose presence could be ascertained by omnipresent excrement – and of course by the un-hide-able beasts themselves. After traversing the park to reach the tube station, we finally began our long journey back to Oxford.

The Palm House at Kew
A Chinese lion statue in the forefront of the Palm House
The Palm House as reflected in the lake
A rhododendron
White wisterias
The Davies Alpine House
An alpine columbine
A succulent
A passion flower
A phosphorescent jade vine
A white lotus
Pitcher plants
A cactus
A prickly pear
The desert greenhouse
An orchid
The titan arum
Some kind of white flower
A saffron-coloured calathea
The showy medinilla or rose grape
Presumably a grevillea
A gazebo at Kew Palace
The French formal garden at Kew Palace
Kew Palace
Kew Palace from slightly farther away
The Palm House from the back
A greenhouse
A zingiber spectabile
Some kind of mushroom; I don't have a mushroom-recognising app
Some kind of cycad
A Chinese dwarf banana, also called a golden lotus banana or a Chinese yellow banana
The Chinese pagoda
A Japanese shrine
A redwood
A swan
A swan spreading its wings
A swan swimming up to a goose
A swan fighting a goose
An Egyptian goose
Another building at the lake in Kew
Hampton Court Palace
A bench
Hampton Court Palace again
A guard post by Bushy Park
A deer at Bushy Park
The same
A statue at Bushy Park
The Queen of Time

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