Europe CNY 2012 - Day 1, Part 2 - Kew Gardens

"I told my psychiatrist that everyone hates me. He said I was being ridiculous - everyone hasn't met me yet." - Rodney Dangerfield

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Europe CNY 2012
Day 1 - 19th January - Kew Gardens (Part 2)

The next stop was Kew Gardens. Granted it wasn't going to be too impressive in the winter, but the greenhouses would be nice, and I wasn't sure when I was visiting London again (it'd been 6 years since my last visit)


Entrance


Devil's Claw Proboscidea louisianica
This was a sculpture made of some organic plant material, not the actual plant


Orangerie. Here there was wifi for you to download a Kew Gardens app. They blocked web pages but forgot to block foursquare and Whatsapp.


Kew Palace


Oriental Plane tree: fruit


Oriental Plane tree


Kew Palace, lawn


Green bird in tree


Green Bird

I then came across the first of many sponsored benches:


"Cherished memories of my husband Mr. Mark Antony Yates. 1956-1991 and the many treasured hours spent here"


Sweet Chestnut Tree


Rhododendron Dell. Which looks nicer in Spring or Summer


A very simple sponsored bench: "Dave's Bench"

Happily there were 2 spots of colour: camellias in different stages of flowering.


Camellia japonica 'Prosper Vial'


Camellia 'Lady Clare'


Overbooked bench, dedicated to both Kathy Ward and Jack Pearce.
By this point I was suspecting Kew Gardens made more money from selling bench space than from ticket sales.

There was a Minka House. Minka being a Japanese type of house.


On the Minka style, and the Minka House at Kew


Inside the house


Exterior of Minka House


Are you suspicious at the bench placement? Do you suspect that they are not located for patrons' comfort but for some other reason?


Azaleas, out of season


Geese


Circumcised narrow leaved ash


Lucombe oak


Syon Vista


Annoyingly, the Rhizotron and Xstrata Treetop Walkways were closed. They should've lowered ticket prices to compensate.


Lake with Sackler Crossing in the background

Then came the most suspicious bench placement yet:


Benches scattered at random, as if by a mad artist
I went to check, and all of these benches were sponsored (in fact, I didn't see any NON-sponsored benches in Kew). I was positive that they were placed so that they could be auctioned off, rather than being pre-existing benches.


Lake path


Lake


More cynical bench placement


Perrys Weeping Holly


Closed treetop walk

I saw a bench with 3 memorial plaques. At first I thought this was the most outrageous example of commercialisation yet, but a closer look revealed a different story:


"In memory of Norman L. Dunbar"
"Sylvia R. Illman (née Dunbar)"
"In loving memory of Florence Dunbar"
The wife outlived her husband by a year, and the daughter died just shortly after her mother. Sad.


One of Kew's Glasshouses, the Temperate House which "is the largest surviving Victorian glasshouse in the world"


A smaller glasshouse, the Evolution House. "This aluminium glasshouse is probably the oldest made from this material anywhere in the world". Hah.


Evolution House
The place had a mixture of extant plants and artificial ones


Jumping 3 billion years in a step


Liverworts


Ancient Forest view