Kew- Phew what a scorcher

Despite being in the grip of a heatwave, I wasn't going to miss a trip to Kew - the morning started quite cool and cloudy, but that soon disappeared..

by the time the gate opened at 8, the sky was turning blue.

sprinklers were giving welcome relief to the beds





I did take pictures of the "Queen's Beasts" the statues along the Palm House but wasn't very pleased with the angles I used so will keep that idea for another time...

 this is the one the other end of the Palm House..











I took an early look at the Rose Garden, where amazingly there wasn't much scent;  I think the most heavily scented varieties must have finished, as there were lots fewer blooms this week.

 so I headed for the Broad Walk...

 although I took some of the full blown open lilies, I love this one of the buds to come, what a great colour! 

 scabious,  love these flowers.

 there were masses of blooms

 the bees just loved this












and it towered above me, masses of white flowers

 this is huge too, stood on a bench to take this one

 I love coneflowers

 mingling in the beds, beautiful combination

 pale yellow scabious,

the bees were loving this

 more early morning watering

 round to the Hive, mostly cowslip type grasses and flowers now... this one was facing away from me...

 hiding a  ?clover? 

 there was someone cleaning the Hive but I took a look anyway...

reflections from above and the structure below..

 I love how the grasses are spilling over onto the steps..

 Hemerocallis, day lilies.  fabulous colours

 surprisingly although there were lots that had gone to seed, there were still quite a lot of poppies, and the bees were busy here too

 beautiful red-pink roses on the pergola

 against the blue sky

 polka-dot mixed colour cornflowers - these were so beautiful I took loads! 

 couldn't see what these were, growing through the cornflowers, but the colour was fabulous

 I took a walk past the giant gunnera opposite the Palm House

 on my way for an early (9.30) cup of coffee and cake....

 lemon and elderflower today, eaten outside in the warm sunshine, where I now applied my suncream...


the cake was delicious...

 time to walk towards the Temperate House...

 where they were just opening the front door (with some difficulty, think the key was stuck - in the end I went in a side one..)

 just love the tree ferns

and the sun shining through the windows and through the fronds.



Gardeners World (BBC gardening programme, Elizabeth)  had a feature on the Temperate House last night,  you mentioned when it opened that the plants looked small, considering they'd taken all the old ones out to store during the restoration - they used them to propogate to re-stock the house

 strange furry looking thing - label is banksia oreophila....

 from up above again

 dichro versicolour - pretty! 

 from the end door looking through

 went and sat in some shade for a while again, it was hot!

Mount Etna broom

growing under the shade of the broom was a large clump of Lavatera

 I then walked alongside the lake...

 great reflections

 beautiful colours

 the water had cleared a lot since last week

but there were still areas of weed

 I went to see if I could get closer to the swan and its babies...

 the other adult was resting under the trees


there are always lots of wildfowl, ducks, geese, round here and one man I see regularly photographing them, he feeds them and they seem to trust him, so I took advantage and grabbed some shots too...

 the swan was making sure the ducks didn't come too close though

after I left them to it, I headed back to the Palm House and the Rose Garden...

stopping for more shady rest on the way...

 the doors to the Waterlily House had been propped open so although it was humid inside, the air was circulating so my lens didn't mist up...

 lotus flower

 hibiscus

 back outside to the Palm House parterre beds

 sat on a bench at a table in the shade, another rest needed - drinking my water, but it was very hot (for here!)

 the gallery where the Life in Death (still miss it) was...

 walked through the long grasses...

 blue blue sky..

 walked past again... will be going back in soon

 another quick look at the Pagoda
(yes, you will be able to go inside once the restoration is finished)

 walking back to the Temperate House, (the work still being done is on the grass outside), was struck by the patterns

so, took another walk through - you notice something different even in the couple of hours since I was there earlier...

 it was time for Cirque Bijou... decided to watch from a different view point... was going to stay down at ground level...


they were having sound problems but luckily got it sorted in time to start on time...

and I also decided to head upstairs to watch from this side...

 another totally different point of view..


I was determined to watch and not take loads more photos... but ....

and from there it was time to head home for the first of today's World Cup matches... got home 5 minutes before kick off, perfect timing and a very good match too..









No Kew next week, I am planning to go to the Hampton Court Flower Show, the weather is meant to be staying really hot so that will be a challenge to keep cool and hydrated, but it is a very good day out...

Thanks for looking