london - part 3
written september 25, 2008
decided to stay in london rather than go to paris and i just went on a tree tour at kew gardens. so glad i did! kew gardens is like an arboretum. lots of trees (old and new), perennials here and there, plants properly labelled, volunteers, gardeners, scientists, a horticulture school…. i love it - could spend days and days here. some of the trees are just spectacular. i’ve seen trees over 300 years old! and it’s interesting to hear someone from another country talk about american trees too. apparently, many of our natives are known for their fall color. who knew?
now that the tour is over, i’m off to check out the “order beds” where they’re studying - don’t know what actually. presumably hybrids and unidentified plants? i heard from the tour guide that there are also student beds and that i should be able to peak in the windows of the lab where the scientists are working. =) cool!
update: the order beds are actually organized by family. the intention is to show different species that are in the same family so that students and the public can see how related plants are both similar and different. that was kinda neat to see. the student beds were all vegetable beds and not that exciting, but each bed had a placard at the head of it with a photograph of the student and a short description of something about the student’s vegetable bed. some talked about always having grown their own vegetables, some talked about having never grown vegetables before; some said they wanted to show that vegetable gardens can be aesthetically pleasing as well as functional… so that was interesting. i ended up spending about four hours in the gardens and only left b/c my feet hurt!
here are a few photos from kew gardens
decided to stay in london rather than go to paris and i just went on a tree tour at kew gardens. so glad i did! kew gardens is like an arboretum. lots of trees (old and new), perennials here and there, plants properly labelled, volunteers, gardeners, scientists, a horticulture school…. i love it - could spend days and days here. some of the trees are just spectacular. i’ve seen trees over 300 years old! and it’s interesting to hear someone from another country talk about american trees too. apparently, many of our natives are known for their fall color. who knew?
now that the tour is over, i’m off to check out the “order beds” where they’re studying - don’t know what actually. presumably hybrids and unidentified plants? i heard from the tour guide that there are also student beds and that i should be able to peak in the windows of the lab where the scientists are working. =) cool!
update: the order beds are actually organized by family. the intention is to show different species that are in the same family so that students and the public can see how related plants are both similar and different. that was kinda neat to see. the student beds were all vegetable beds and not that exciting, but each bed had a placard at the head of it with a photograph of the student and a short description of something about the student’s vegetable bed. some talked about always having grown their own vegetables, some talked about having never grown vegetables before; some said they wanted to show that vegetable gardens can be aesthetically pleasing as well as functional… so that was interesting. i ended up spending about four hours in the gardens and only left b/c my feet hurt!
here are a few photos from kew gardens