July 13 (Monday) – Kew Gardens

Today we hopped on the Tube to head out to Kew Gardens, the Royal Botanical Gardens.  It was overcast today with a bit of mist later in the day.  However, it wasn’t enough to put a damper on our tour of the gardens.

Turning right as we went into the gardens we found a lovely small lake,

brilliant flower beds,

statuary,

and the first of several conservatory/green houses.  The first one we visited was the Palm House - a two-story glass building with lots of palms and other tropical plants from the Americas and Asia.  There was a walkway around part of the upper story of the greenhouse, putting us right inside the trees.

The nearby Water Lily house featured the giant water lily Victoria Amazonica.  None of these were in bloom but the pond contained a number of other types of water lilies, many of which were in bloom,

The Princess of Wales House specialized primarily in plants from arid climates. 

It also had pond with the giant water lilies.

We took the garden “train” around the grounds to see many of the sights including King William’s Temple...

and a Chinese pagoda.

We stopped to climb up to a raised walkway where you could walk around the treetops of the London Planetrees, which are very common in the area (we were joined by dozens of exuberant elementary students on a field trip).  The views were strictly of the treetops...somewhat monotonous. 

Back on the train we passed Queen Charlotte’s cottage (closed today) and ended at the Orangery and Kew Palace.

Kew Palace

Kew Palace was used as a refuge by King George III and his family when he was suffering from bouts of madness.  It is small as palaces go and had only minimal furnishings. 

We opted for lunch at the Orangery…it has great, tall windows for providing proper lighting for orange trees that are grown in Orangery’s.  There were only a couple of palms in the building, no orange trees.  However, lunch was very good.  

The main flower gardens were a bit of a (a big) disappointment as the major beds along one of the broad walks had all been totally removed for renovation.  Apparently the walks had been resurfaced and the beds were going to be totally redesigned and planted in 2016.  So the giant flower beds were bare soil. 

However, the rest of the gardens were great.  There were a number of very long boulevards throughout the gardens.

One of the boulevards was lined with dozens of hydrangeas in full bloom.  They were absolutely breathtaking.

While sitting on a bench enjoying the gardens we were joined by a peacock.  Very up close and personal.

We walked along the lakes...

and saw a duck family,

coots (look closely, they have very unusual feet),

and a family of swans, Mom, Dad and four cygnets. 

Our walk took us to the back side of the Palm House Conservatory

to the rose gardens.  Many of the roses, while past their prime, were still in bloom.

We ate dinner near the hotel, at Gourmet Burger Kitchen (GBK), which turned out to have great chocolate shakes. 

July 14 (Tuesday) – Sissinghurst Gardens

This morning we bought train tickets to Staplehurst, about an hour outside of London, where we picked up a taxi for a trip into the countryside to Sissinghurst Gardens, one of the most famous gardens in England.  The first manor home on the site was built in the 1300's with most of the buildings dating from the Elizabethan/Tudor era.  The buildings were purchased and restored in the 1930's and the gardens were created during that time.

The stables building was converted to living quarters.  Only the library section of the building was open to the public.  The buildings were all of brick...

and had wonderful Elizabethan detailing, including diamond shaped leaded windows.

But the main attraction of this building (for Mary) was that the brick buildings made a lovely backdrop for overflowing flower beds.

The site also included an Elizabethan tower.

The Tower Courtyard had wonderful flower beds of all colors and with vines and roses climbing the brick walls.

By climbing to the top of the tower we had great views of the gardens and the surrounding countryside of Kent. 

One of the more famous of the individual gardens in the complex is the White Garden with all of the plants having white flowers or silvery grey foliage.  The garden was surrounded by a high brick wall and backed up to a lovely cottage.

There was also a Cottage Garden, aptly situated beside another lovely cottage.

One avenue off the Cottage Garden was lined with massive flowerbed and led to a statue overlooking a pool.

The formal gardens had high yew hedges, with some forming alleys with statues at the end ...

and others forming outdoor rooms filled with many flower beds.

The garden was a wonderful place to sit and contemplate.

One thinks of roses when thinking of English Gardens.  And Sissinghurst had lots of roses.  But there were may other beautiful flowers in bloom.

Sunflowers

Thistles

Hollyhocks

Roses



Fairy Wands

There was one very interesting building that appeared to have oddly shaped "chimneys".  Turns out it was an Oast House that is used for "kilning" (or drying) hops used to make beer.

Oast House - for drying hops

We also took a walk out to the small nearby lakes on the property.

 The walk meandered through a forest with lots of ferns in the understory,...

 passed through a field filled with sheep,...

and proceed on through the apple orchard.

There was also a very large vegetable garden where they grow many of the vegetables used at the Granary Restaurant (housed in the farm’s old granary building). 

Vegetable Garden

Granary

Again it wasn’t very sunny.  We had overcast and clouds most of the day…right up until just before the taxi came to pick us up to take us to the train station.  It figures.

We got back to London shortly before Jim and Phyllis Bratt made it in from Paris on the Eurostar train (through the Channel Tunnel or Chunnel).  We went out for dinner and started planning some of our upcoming vacation days.