Kew September

Kew September

My September Kew gardens poster dates from 1927 and shows a plant archway.

Now I like that artwork which is by Clive Gardiner. He wasn’t familiar to me but having looked him up I shall keep an eye open for his posters.

Now here’s an archway in my garden.

This arch is very utilitarian for it is covered with our fig tree. The steps are out to pick figs. It was an entry from this tree that won my wife the best horticultural exhibit in our village produce show at the August bank holiday. Blackberries also earned a prize.

I’m sure the arch at Kew was more beautiful. After several weeks of moderate neglect our garden needs attention, but it is being productive. The dinner I ate earlier had a grand collection of veg and fruit from the garden – fresh, tasty and as healthy as can be.

August at Kew (and in Wiltshire)

The August Kew picture isn’t an absolute favourite, perhaps because it doesn’t emphasise the transport links. It does remind us that it used to be cheap to visit the place – just a penny!

OK, it mentions a station. This was a 1937 poster by Betty Swanwick.

Now we’ll turn to my garden which has not had the best of years. Very wet conditions earlier in the year brought out the slugs in huge numbers and then we have our mammalian marauders – roe deer, muntjac deer, rabbits and badgers which all make use of the garden for their own benefit sometimes at our expense (but we love seeing them all). And we also suffer avian attack notably from wood pigeons.

Our garden tends to be at its best in spring. It rapidly turns from too wet to too dry, being light sandy soil so it tends to be small containers, near the house and above ground level that provide us with colour.

But some plants do amazingly well. Hollyhocks could be regarded as weeds for they spring up all over the place. But what lovely plants they are.

The assault mob of animals must find them distasteful for they grow well. Well isn’t that delightful!

 

Kew in summer

This is another image advising us of the wonderful sights at Kew Gardens. And please get there by Underground!

This is a July calendar picture and it features water lilies. It was from an original painted by Wilfrid René Wood in 1926.

Now I’m quite fond of lilies – water or otherwise so here are some from my garden and elsewhere.Water lilies in 1998

A garden lily from 1999 – all early digital photos in my garden.

And how about a lily at Kew – my most recent visit in 2014.

Visiting Kew again

Yes it is time to visit Kew again, courtesy of a 2016 calendar. This time it is March and potential visitors are being persuaded that this will be blossom time.

Oh! Of course visitors are encouraged to get there by London Underground District Railway to Kew Garden Stations.

This poster is by Freda Lingstrom and dates from 1925.

I have to confess that visits I have made to Kew Gardens have been by car although I know South West London based relatives went there by train the other day. But then they are of an age to benefit from the Londoner’s free ticket, not just on buses but on trains as well.

My last visit was in May 2014 where I snapped a shot of this unknown lady.

Now that looks relaxed!

Cacti at Kew

We had a recent family get together at Kew Gardens. Luck was with us and we had good weather with no need to go in the glass houses to escape the rain. But of course we did visit these interior spots and the Princess of Wales Conservatory remains a favourite, perhaps because of its cactus collection.

Back in the late 1980s and into the 90s our son had been an avid cactus collector. We took him to Kew to see them back then and when it came to his GCSE technology project he designed and built a watering system with trays to hold water and a reversible pump to put water in and take it out again. He attended meetings of the local cactus society so for a while our life seemed to revolve around these prickly plants.

Remnants of his once extensive collection still linger on – inevitably in our house and not his. And look, this one even has flowers about to open.

But we can’t rival Kew, of course and here’s a collection at that west London botanic garden.

Looking around again, after more than twenty years, certainly brought old memories back for us three – self, wife and son.