Hi, I’ve had the pleasure of a long walk at Kew Gardens today. It always brings back happy memories of my student holidays working in the gift shop there. I wanted to say to the girl on the till “I did your job in 1989” (summers 1989-1992 to be precise) but she looked a bit busy for my middle aged woman reminiscing. It was a lovely place to work, a little different back then as the book/gift shop was in the Orangery which is now a restaurant, correction, at the moment it’s a bit of a building site with scaffolding up. My Mum used to have a Friends of Kew membership, maybe she still has. I should look into that, she still has some unused direct debits. It’s a place she always enjoyed.
There are always so many highlights there. The trees are old, wise and beautiful. The same trees as my student days. I used to direct customers to where to see the ginkgo trees as we sold ginkgo shaped earrings in the shop. I’ve always loved ginkgos, such pretty shaped leaves.
Ginkgos are also a really really old species..
“The Ginkgo biloba is one of the oldest living tree species in the world. It’s the sole survivor of an ancient group of trees that date back to before dinosaurs roamed the Earth – creatures that lived between 245 and 66 million years ago. It’s so ancient, the species is known as a ‘living fossil”
Cool or what?
The real “wow” of the day for me were the rhododendrons in bloom. I went expecting bluebells but was far more impressed with pretty rhododendrons. Petalled balls of delight.
Pretty gorgeous don’t you think?
As you can imagine, I have a ton of other photos from today, but for now I must get showered and changed and get the steak and kidney puds on for dinner before cinema tonight. I’ll just leave you with one shot of the iconic pagoda at the end of a path of magnificent trees. Enjoy! Xx
The Windsor Waffle 
I have been once here some years ago and absolutely loved it. I didn’t quite get the time to see everything with just enjoying sitting out at a particular part of the gardens with company of a robin that was very close to me, checking me out.
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I hope you get to visit again one day 😎x
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I would like to. But it may not happen.
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Rhododendrons – reminiscent of Clyde Gardens!
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i love gingko or maidenhair ferns too. I was given a tree map of my area recently and discovered there are several not too far from my street. I had to go and find them. they are extraordinary trees and very pretty indeed. the school where i worked for about 14 years had the leaf as its symbol, too.
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How nice. I think we had an oak tree/leaves as our school symbol but I’ve never thought about that until now. I wasn’t particularly interested in trees back then.. too much else going on I guess?!?
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