Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew - England Attractions - Travel & Discover

The Royal Botanic Gardens, better known as Kew Gardens, is widely recognized as one of the leading centers in the world for advice and action on aspects of plant and fungal conservation. Visitors to Kew can explore its many greenhouses, landscapes, and 250 years of history at the world's most famous garden. Kew Gardens has undertaken many conservation programs on a Kew's collection of more than 30,000 different kinds of plants is the most diverse collection of living plants in the world. One in eight of all flowering plant species grow here. As early as the 16th century, the land that is now Kew Gardens began to be developed into what it is today, in large part due to royal influence. Existing buildings, lost monuments, and follies, gardens and landscapes new and old, botanic collections, and Kew's places of work, all are part of Kew's heritage, as are the people who inspired, designed, or built them. On July 3rd, 2003, Kew Royal Botanic Gardens was officially inscribed on the list of World Heritage Sites by UNESCO. Kew Palace is the smallest and most intimate of royal palaces. Built in 1631, it is constructed of red brick laid in a style known as Flemish Bond, consisting of bricks arranged with sides and ends alternating. Canadian geese, ducks, and various species of birdlife wander freely in the gardens, much to the delight of visitors. A visit to the gardens is a unique experience, combining close contact with plant and birdlife, the shade and serenity provided by the secluded gardens together with the stunning simplicity of the architectural structures. King William's Temple stands on a mound on Cherry Walk, in between the Palm House and Temperate House. It was built in 1837 for Queen Victoria, in memory of William IV. The 2,000-square-meter area to the west of the temple is planted to typical Mediterranean natural habitat. Fashioned in Jacobian-style ironwork and supported by carved Portland stone pillars, the main gate comprises a double central gate and side openings for pedestrians. Decimus Burton was commissioned to design the existing main gate in 1841. Completed in 1846, the resulting construction, with its royal coat of arms and floral motifs, were more fitting for a garden in the midst of becoming an important national botanical institution than the previous gate. Kew's Pagoda was completed in 1762. The ten-story octagonal building tapers, with successive floors from the first to the topmost, being 30 centimeters less in diameter and height than the preceding one. The original building was very colorful. The roofs were covered with varnished iron plates, with a dragon on each corner. There were 80 dragons in all, each carved from wood and gilded with real gold. Built by Richard Turner to Decimus Burton's designs in the 1840s, the Palm House is Kew's most recognizable building. It has gained iconic status as the world's most important surviving Victorian glass and iron structure. The Palm House was designed to accommodate the exotic palms being collected and introduced to Europe in early Victorian times. The project was pioneering, as it was the first time engineers had used wrought iron to span such large widths without supporting columns. This technique was borrowed from the shipbuilding industry, and from a distance the glasshouse resembles an upturned hull. The result was a vast, light, lofty space that could easily accommodate the crowns of large palms. The Palm House creates conditions similar to tropical rainforests. About 70% of all palm species are found in tropical rainforests, one of the most threatened habitats on Earth. Around a quarter of the palms planted here are threatened in the wild, as are more than half of the cycads, the so-called living fossils of the tropics. The Palm House also contains many plants of great economic significance, grown for the yields of fruits, timbers, spices, fibers, perfumes, and medicines. Plants are grouped together in geographical areas, except in the center, where the tallest specimens need the extra height of the dome. The elegant design of the Palm House, with its unobstructed space for the spreading crowns of the tall palms, was a perfect marriage of form and function. The area surrounding the Palm House forms the heart of the 1850s Ness Field and Burton landscape. Small plots of open lawn and formal flowerbeds vie for attention, along with an ornamental lake, clumps of mature trees, and open vistas. The Royal Botanic Gardens of Kew form a historic landscape garden, whose elements illustrate significant periods of the art of gardens from the 18th through the 20th century. Since their creation, the gardens have made a significant and uninterrupted contribution to the study of plant diversity and botanic economics. The Princess of Wales Conservatory was commissioned in 1982 to replace a group of 26 smaller buildings that were falling into disrepair. It was named after Princess Augusta, the founder of Kew, and was opened in 1987 by Diana, then Princess of Wales. Its technology enables the recreation of 10 different environments, covering all the climatic conditions found in the tropics, from arid desert to the most humid rainforest. This most complex of Kew's public glasshouses has 10 climatic zones, all computer controlled under one roof. The two main climate zones, the dry tropics and wet tropics, occupy most of this conservatory. There are eight more different microclimates in the conservatory, each created for the special needs of a particular plant group. All plants are shown as naturalistically as possible, with ferns clinging to dripping rock faces and climbers on columns. The decision to build the rock garden was hastened in 1882 by a donation of some 3,000 alpine plants, one of the largest collections in the country at the time. William Thistleton Dyer, wanting to avoid creating something uncouth and obtrusive, opted to design a 150 meter valley, akin to a Pyrenean mountain habitat. At its center was a winding path, simulating a natural water course. In 1870, a rosewalk was created flanking the herbaceous ground. Kew installed its first rose pergola in 1901, between the rock garden and herbaceous ground. Kew gardens are also notable for the incredible wealth of their collections. The 19 collections are divided into three main categories, the collection of conserved plants, the collection of living plants and genetic resources, and the documentary and visual reference collections. These collections, highly exhaustive, diversified, and of very high quality, are used in various ways for teaching, research, medicine, and conservation. The Temple of Aeolus, which can be accessed via a bark path, is now the focal point of the woodland garden, which emulates a natural woodland. Covering 4,880 square meters and extending to a height of 19 meters, the Temperate House is the largest surviving Victorian glasshouse in the world. With voracious Victorian collectors bringing back ever more species from around the globe, Kew needed somewhere to house its growing collection of semi-hardy and temperate plants, a situation leading to the construction of the Temperate House in 1859. Kew's Temperate House is still arranged according to Decimus Burton's original plan. The south wing and octagon are home to African plants. The main rectangular hall hosts subtropical trees and palms, while the north wing and octagon contain temperate plants from Australia, New Zealand, Asia, and the Pacific. A boiler in the nearby stable yard helps keep the temperature to a minimum 18 degrees Celsius year-round, while the sun provides a little extra warmth for the heat-loving South African plants at the southern end of the glasshouse. The authenticity of Kew Gardens is indisputable. Its 44 listed monuments are important historical buildings that reflect the stylistic expressions of various periods. They have retained their authenticity in terms of design, materials, and functions. The past, present, and future are so closely interwoven in each of the landscaped garden areas that it is sometimes difficult to separate the artistic achievements of the past in terms of the landscape design of the different period. The small, elegant glasshouse called Waterlily House is another one of Kew's classic listed buildings. Located opposite the northern entrance of the Palm House, its square glazed structure encloses a circular pond spanning 11 meters. It was completed in 1852 specifically to showcase the giant Amazon water lily, now called Victoria Amazonica, which had first been encountered by European botanists in South America at the beginning of the 19th century. The importance of Kew today is thanks to a succession of avid collectors, visionary scientists, inspired landscape architects, and dedicated gardeners who, over the centuries, created and developed the gardens and the collections they contain.