Kew Gardens

Despite an ankle that feels sprained, I made my way out again. Navigating the underground is old hat now. Kew Gardens is almost at the end of the underground line. My first surprise is that there is a very quaint little town there. The gardens are a brief stroll through the town. There were many little shops at the station. I bought a book at the Kew Book Shop on my way back to the station. I had to use one of the ATMs, as well ("A Hole in the Wall"). Money goes pretty quickly here. There was a 13 pound admission charge. Kew Gardens covers some 300 acres. It is a world class garden but much more than that. They carry on research in conservation and horticulture. According to their brochure, they employ around 200 science staff, 75 affiliated researchers, and 110 horticulturists. There are perhaps millions of flowers, trees, and plants. There are a couple of green houses (glass houses here), including the Temperate House, which used to be the largest glass house in the world. It was very humid. It was amusing to see plants and trees that are in my yard. The Princess of Wales Conservatory reminded me of the Botanical Gardens in Buffalo, though this was much larger. There are many areas designed to feature specific regions of the world and types of vegetation. I spent several hours there but didn't see it all. Like the National Gallery, there were scores of school children there. I was particularly impressed with one school as the students all wore deep purple sweaters. The English system seems to certainly value field trips. There are benches all over the gardens. Many of them have plaques honoring people who loved the gardens. One I sat on had a plaque for a lady named Daisy who lived from 1881 to 1983. The environment certainly agreed with her. At first, it seemed like I had missed the full colors as many flower beds were bare and being rebedded. But, I finally did find many colorful areas with incredibly beautiful flowers. A couple of spots were especially breath-taking, and I found that several artists had set up their easels and were painting watercolors.



The lady on the left was painting. I found my own quiet spot to jot down some notes and ended up writing a short story. It was more than just the ambiance that inspired me, though.





There were many clusters of lavender growing everywhere. It reminded me of my favorite song that Erin used to play for me when she played the piano, "Lavender's Blue."




I took many more pictures, but these are enough for now. Ironically, the one thing I kept looking for, any acknowledgement of Virginia Woolf, was something I never found. Her brilliant story, "Kew Gardens," which I teach in my short story class, is the main reason I wanted to see the gardens. I asked one of the guides about it, and he said there was nothing he knew about it. At the information desk, they were not aware of any connection to Virginia Woolf. A couple of the men did posit the opinions that she wasn't "all there." The woman in charge of the guides had never heard of the story. They wrote it down in their book as they keep track of things that people bring up. I thought that was rather remarkable. One of the men did say that Virginia lived in Richmond, which is the last stop on the underground line (actually, it's above ground by this time). The reason I had mentioned it in the first place is that I had been trying to figure out where she was when the story was written. I never did, which is probably appropriate as there is no real narrator unless it's the garden itself, Gaia, or God. To have an actual spot would have limited it. The woman had pointed out one of the lakes in there and said, without knowing anything about the story, maybe she wrote near one of the lakes since "she had an affinity for water." I don't know if she was being funny or not. Maybe she was thinking To The Lighthouse rather than the fact that Virginia drowned herself. Anyway, maybe I started something, or maybe they were just humoring me. Virginia certainly inspired me to not only visit the gardens but to write a story while I sat within them. For both of those reasons, it was a successful trip.