Kew , dull again

 Last week's extreme cold has gone, and today was grey and cloudy, almost misty.

Kim was back so there are shots of me taking my opening shot today

the pond has thawed out during the week

but I prefer it with blue sky and ice!   or at the least, blue sky!

we went round to the hive, which was accessible today as the surface was dry and not slippery

round the corner outside the back of the Princess of Wales,  was a lone flowering daffodil

spring might be on the way!!!

sneaking a peak through the windows of the POW at the boxes of prep for the Orchids - start beginning of February... time slots are booked!

across the top of grass garden 

aloe outside the alpine house

alpine house 

there were lots of these again this week

and some teeny narcissus

the snow drops have recovered from their freezing and were standing up again 

I like the mix of yellow and pink stripes on the phormium


evolution garden 

I love how they leave the flower heads overwinter... hydrangea

khardoon

teasel. -  front on 

and side on!

something little - not sure what! 

cute little star shaped flowers

the buds on the magnolia are soft and fluffy, and don't seem to have suffered in the frost 

witch hazel

from the woodland garden we took the path up to the Temple of Aeolus, to see the view....

down to the Evolution Garden

changing lens for a full view - we've decided not to forget to do this again as the EG fills out with colour during the seasons...

there's a 360 degree view - this direction is the palm house of course 

changed lens back again...

it's a small structure with several pillars.

Kim took some candid shots of course..

including a panoramic one on her phone - I'm hiding behind one of the pillars...  I said after I should have run round the outside of the pillars as she took it!  next time maybe. 

heading back down the path It would have been very slippery to have attempted this in the icy weather last week!

back at the bottom, we headed past the glorious dogwood by the pond

a rare bit of colour on this very grey day

so many colours.

we took one of the paths that turns off the rose garden

pas a tree with huge pine cones

lots of them - all quite high up

the needles made good patterns against the sky 

at the lake were a group of geese and gulls

Peter was there feeding them and we stopped to chat... he should have been recovering from a knee replacement but it had been cancelled (again) 

the gulls were missing their perches on the curves along the lake crossing now the Lights have gone 

dogwood on the island

crossing the lake, we paused to throw a squirrel some monkey nuts.. 

before proceeding to the Davies Exploration House

and what I always thought was labelled the Silver Daisy Bush but no longer seems to be.

anyhow, it was looking fabulous

and covered in new flowers

I climbed up onto the wall of the bed it's planted in.

this grows just next to the (maybe not) silver daisy bush

and on the other side of the room is this , a dinky little flowering bottle brush, the flowers are much smaller than the red variety 

by the door was a lone helichrysum (strawflower)

and .... oh, I've forgotten what it's called.

crossing into the Temperate House proper

my camera was having a funny five minutes and didn't seem to want to play nicely...  but these are so pretty I'm including them

there was one bird of paradise flower by the door into the first octagon

blogger deciding the order as we walked round the next bit....

the side paths round the edge of the  main area of the TH are for staff access only, sadly, I've always wanted to get along this path!

through the final door into the last part, the scent of this jasmine hit us

banana

 

it was more than time for refreshments 

hot chocolate for me, although it didn't stay very hot very long sitting outside

no cake today , the Pavilion cafe only has pastries as their main menu is for lunch type hot food and so I just had the drink 

they do put a pretty pattern on it though!  

thanks for looking - hopefully next week will be a bit brighter (although at the time of writing the weather app on my phone says light rain showers, albeit with a bit of sun at times.... fingers crossed it's sun not rain!