‘The best friend on earth of man is the tree……’ Frank Lloyd Wright

What a difference a reasonable night’s sleep and a decent breakfast make. We woke up pretty much recovered and ready to go. Neither of us had ever been to the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew and we had read that Dale Chihuly had a selection of his work exhibited in the gardens, so we decided to go there for the day.

Chihuly is one of the world’s most daring and innovative artists working in glass. In Seattle, where he lives and works, we had visited the Dale Chihuly Garden and Glass, a stunning museum and garden exhibiting his dazzling work. When in Seattle it is a must see. To see some photos of his work you can visit: www.flickr.com/photos/psyclistpaul/albums and scroll down through the albums until you see Chihuly Garden and Glass 2015.

For us to get to Kew it is a 30 minute trip on the underground Bakerloo Line from Paddington to Waterloo and then another 30 minute trip on the aboveground South Western Railway to Kew Garden Station.

Kew Gardens contains the largest and most diverse plant collection in the world. It has been dated as formerly starting in 1779, beginning as an exotic garden and being enlarged by the merging of royal estates. We didn’t go to view the plants so much as to see Chihuly’s works, visit the buildings and just enjoy being outdoors on a sunny day in beautiful surroundings.

There are many notable buildings and structures and although we didn’t see them all some of the most interesting were:

The Chinese Pagoda erected in 1762 and decorated with large colourful dragons.

The Japanese Gateway, moved to Kew in 1911, it is a four fifths  scale replica of a temple gate in Kyoto.

Queen Charlotte’s Cottage built about 1771 for Queen Charlotte and her husband George III on day visits to Kew.

The Palm House and Parterre of 1844 – 1848, a fabulous structure of wrought iron, tubes, prestressed cables and glass with a walkway 9m above the ground to view the tops of the palms. In front of the house are ‘The Queen’s Beasts’, a row of 10 animals bearing shields.

The Temperate House started in 1859, took 40 years to build and is the world’s largest Victorian glass structure.

Princess of Wales Conservatory opened in 1987 by Diana Princess of Wales in commemoration of one of her predecessors Augusta Princess of Wales. It contains 10 computer controlled micro-climates of hot, cold, wet, dry, temperate, tropic, etc.

Treetop Walkway, 2008, a 200 metre walk 18 metres above the ground in the tree canopy. When you stop walking it wobbles and sways a lot, caused just by people moving about.

The Hive, 2016, a multi-sensory experience highlighting the extraordinary life of bees.

The Sackler Crossing Bridge, 2006, an elegant sweeping double curve bridge of black granite and bronze.

And much, much more and all the time the amazing work of Dale Chihuly popping up in this wonderful, if slightly artificial, landscape. We took it all pretty slowly and had a very relaxing day. Kew gets 1.9 million visitors a year, which is about 5000 per day but it is so big it never feels crowded.

We didn’t spend a lot of time examining the plants but one I was interested to see was Victoria amazonica, a genus of water-lilies from the shallow waters of the Amazon River Basin. It has leaves that float on the water and are up to 3 metres in diameter and can support up to 32 kilogrammes. In a past life I designed additions to the Begonia House in the Wellington Botanic Gardens so that these lilies could be grown in Wellington. We did succeed for a while but the lilies were very sensitive to water and air temperature and humidity and it was very demanding to keep these in a narrow range all year round.

In the desert section of the Princess of Wales Conservatory Barbara found an unusual cactus that looked exactly like an illustration from a Dr Seuss book. So it is now the Dr Seuss Tree.