Kew the Gardens - snaps a plenty

Kew Gardens yesterday, as well as being a world class  centre  of excellence in Horticultural matters it's a great day out, so many  routes and the attractions are changing through the seasons from the stirrings of spring to the rich autumnal golds

A Crow lands amongst the colour

It was slightly unusual for us to may a weekday visit, there's still plenty of people enjoying the early spring(??) sunshine and many different languages overheard so many people have this on their tourist maps.





Crocuses and such like provide a magical sprinkling to the gardens and you can almost forget that you're on the Heathrow flight path (the West london resident  can become almost oblivious to this anyway!)

Kew gave us a lovely taste of spring

And some carbon offsetting

There were quite a  number of sophisticated looking cameras and the  snapping of them reminds me of  how Kodak gave up their poll position in photography (that's a business lesson from the real world) -there are so many opportunities to capture great images at Kew.

Seems that campaign to limit the damage done by budget cuts from the  Tory led coalition did have some effect but crazy that we should consider this a suitable target for money saving as our tax dodging Multi-millionaires continue to accrue ever more riches.

There's usually rebuilding work of one or more of the enormous Glasshouses at a given time and this perspective from the suspended tree walk gives an idea of the scale of the current project due to finish in 2018 .

I'm not sure our window cleaner could manage this one.

Kew is great at integrating large scale sculpture into the landscape and vey nice to see Henry Moore figure of reclining Mother and Child  on display again there.

Not your usual recliner - This one's from Henry Moore and not DFS and is on show until Sept 25th 

We took the Treetop walk  it was really delightful with minimal disturbance from others  who enjoyed the views, it's nice to get the geography sorted, you can see Wembley Stadium from uo there while trees are mainly bare.
The experience was not spoilt by  the presence anyone  whining  about other similar tree walks (yes I'm talking about the Duchess of Northumberland)  who think they can all but copyright such experiences!

Why is the Duchess upset by this visitor attraction at Kew?

As we exited the Gardens took in an inspirational selection of Photographs from the winners of the 'International Garden Photographer of the Year' it (of course made me to take more pictures and I wanted an even  better camera).
 

IGPOTY -Makes you want to be a better Photographer

The visit was a good chance to take photo's but the bright sun did mean I struggles with seeing the display - very happy though with this picture (now showing on my Flickr photostream).

Raking in front of the Fountain at Kew lake