Kew Gardens

Cindy S. McGhee, Provisional Master Gardener 2006

As a gardener, one of my favorite things to do is visit great gardens. On a recent trip, I had the opportunity to visit one of the world’s great gardens, the Royal Botanic Garden at Kew, located southwest of London.

The site at Kew has been a garden for more than 300 years. The gardens have always had a royal influence. Located on the river Thames, royal entourages could float down from London, avoid travel overland and enjoy a break from the city at Kew.

The gardens at Kew cover approximately 300 acres (or 121 hectares to the Brits). Kew has been designated a World Heritage Site. Places like Kew are included on the World Heritage List because of their outstanding value to humanity. It is a place of physical beauty, and a place where important work is done.

The gardens contain nearly 40 architectural structures and buildings, from periods throughout Kew’s long history. The man-made structures are an elegant backdrop for the spectacular plantings in the gardens. The plantings include trees known to have been planted in 1762, millions (literally) of spring bulbs, rose gardens, lilac gardens, rock gardens, secluded gardens, aquatic gardens, bamboo gardens, grass gardens and even a garden known as Rhododendron Dell. Kew is paradise for the plant lover.

On our visit, a very British tour guide named Hazel steered us through the highlights. She pointed out historical oddities housed at Kew. The Palm House, a beautiful Victorian structure of glass and iron, contains the world’s oldest potted plant Encephalartos altensteinii, (Eastern cape giant cycad), a cycad brought to Kew in 1775. The Palm House also contains a Protea cynaroides (king protea) that bloomed in 1986 for the first time in 160 years. It had been moved for some restoration and apparently liked its new location. Gardening really does require patience.

Hazel ended our tour at the Princess of Wales Conservatory, dedicated by Princess Diana in 1987. The magnificent greenhouse honors Princess Augusta, also the Princess of Wales. She founded the gardens at Kew in the late 1700’s. Here we were fortunate to partake of the Orchid Festival – 250,000 orchids, of every size and variety imaginable, blooming in all their glory. The sights were memorable.

The rise of Kew Gardens corresponded with the rise of the British Empire. Great plant explorers traveled the world and collected specimens for Kew. By 1864, the gardens at Kew had over 13,000 cultivated species. Today, Kew is not only an unbelievable garden, but a world-renowned center for research and science. The mission statement of Kew is: To enable better management of the Earth’s environment by increasing knowledge and understanding of the plant and fungal kingdoms – the basis of life on earth.

Kew is involved in collecting, classifying, conserving and sustaining plant life. The collections are vast. The plant collection at Kew includes 31,000 different plant groups or taxa, including 15 species that are extinct in the wild, and 2,000 threatened species. The Herbarium at Kew contains 7 million preserved specimens, representing 98% of the known genera in the world. The mycological collections include more than 800,000 specimens of fungi. These collections are utilized by researchers and scientists from around the world.

One of the current projects at Kew is the DNA barcoding of plants. Similar to mapping the human genome, DNA barcoding would allow automatic identification of plants. Kew now holds the DNA barcodes for more than 20,000 species. Imagine the possibilities for gardeners, botanists and forensic scientists.

To learn more about this great garden, visit www.kew.org.