The April Heatwave - Kew Gardens in the Springtime

April 21, 2015


Last week felt more like the middle of summer than the middle of April! I'm such a sunshine lover so last weeks forecast was heaven. As I said in last Friday's post, when you can smell suncream before you go out for the day you know you're in for a treat. The smell just makes me happy as it's associated with long sunny happy days. We had planned, weeks ago to go to Kew Gardens on Wednesday as we were booked in to stay at The Bingham Hotel in Richmond, just down the road for a write up I was doing for So You're Getting Married. Kew is one of my favourite places to visit and the fact we could walk around in shorts and take a picnic made it a truly lovely day. Here are some photos for part one if you'd like to see. Sunny Richmond by the river and the Bingham hotel up will be up next week..
We packed up a picnic in the morning before we left. I bought this vintage picnic basket in an antiques shop in Berkhamsted last summer and love having the opportunity to use it. It came complete with crockery and cutlery built in too!


Kew is fairly pricey to get into {£15 a ticket} but it's well worth it. We actually had a gardener's world card, which expired this week, that meant we got 2 for 1 entry and there are often deals if you travel by train so search around the internet if you're planning to visit. After 10am you can park right outside on the Kew Road for free all day which we did.


Even the entrance was beautiful. I love the bright clashing colours of these spring bulbs.



The tulip display in front of the famous Palm house was perfection, can you imagine trying to plant that many tulips all colour co-ordinated and in perfect displays?! So beautiful and probably the most impressive tulip display I've ever seen.


The cream frilly ones were my favourites. And look at the blue sky!

 


The palm house was steamy and humid but worth a quick look around, we climbed upstairs to walk around the top walkway looking down on the palm trees. You feel like you're in the jungle. But after a few minutes we felt like we were about to boil so headed back out to the fresh air.





From the palm house we found a blossom tree lined path full of the prettiest cherry and plum blossom.





If you follow me on Instagram you might know just how blossom obsessed I am right now. It's just too pretty, trees filled with white and pink frilly blooms against the blue sky. This bench was rather spectacular surrounded by blossom.




Ben sat down while I was taking photos, a common occurrence... but he looked so cute sitting and watching the bees on the blossom. And then I got him to take one of me on my favourite bench.







Kew is huge, there's so much to see. We looked on the map but mainly just wandered. It's still early in the season for a lot of things but there was still a lot of pretty to see like these snowdrops.


And suddenly everything looks so green! 


It depresses me in winter when the trees are bare so I love this time of year for that fresh zingy green with the new leaves growing.


Kew have got nearly every type of plant/flower/tree imaginable. We found a magnolia patch with a carpet full of fallen petals.





And after a couple of hours of wandering we were ready for lunch so I left Ben in charge of finding a nice spot to set up camp while I went to the car to get our picnic basket. Ben had an operation last week so was still meant to be recovering and not actually meant to be doing much walking bless him.


This is the spot he chose, how beautiful! Definitely the most scenic picnic spot we've ever been in I think surrounded by blossom and daffodils.






It was almost too hot to sit in the sun, don't think we've ever said that about England in April before.


We got this selfie by tying the camera to a cherry tree and putting it on the self-time setting! Extreme tripoding!


We had our first British strawberries of the year which tasted even better being warmed in the sunshine. 


We must have laid there for nearly an hour, normally we seem to do things really quickly but we were in no rush to leave this spot. So long Winter, it's saltwater sandal season from here on out. 



From there we explored the rest of Kew although by this point it was getting busier and we were keen to get to Richmond so kind of rushed round the last bit stopping at the pretty stuff - loved these white daffodils.


I think you can go inside Kew Palace, maybe we'll have a look next time.


And we came across more tulips near the Alpine greenhouse.


Frilly cream tulips and pinks are going to be on my shopping list for this autumn's bulbs.


Did you see any of the Kew on a Plate series a few weeks ago? We had a look at the walled kitchen garden to get some ideas for our allotment. It was actually a lot smaller in real life than it looked on the TV series.


A truly lovely half a day out! We could have spent longer there had we not wanted to get to Richmond and check in at The Bingham. More on that next week...





Definitely the best garden in London and well worth a visit. Such a classic, I can't think of anyone who has something bad to say about Kew.

R <3 xx

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1 comments

  1. Oh! What a gorgeous day out! Look at those tulips! So much colour- Nature is amazing , isn't it? My daffodils now have buds - who knows? I may have a little colour in my garden by next week!

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