Ceramic Poppies at the Tower. and.....

 My trip today as you may have seen yesterday, was to be the Tower to see the ceramic poppy display

the wildflowers in the Moat that were originally planted for Queen Elizabeth's platinum jubilee, are starting to come back for the summer

I was really only going for the poppies, and headed past lots of tourists to where I knew they were....

round the White Tower spilling from the upper level 

and a cascade at the foot, flowing across the grass

the page from the Tower website has all the details 

 

and round the other side of the White Tower, 

the Yeoman Warder in the distance by the ravens cages, is Beefy 409, Scott Kelly, who I follow on FB (have been on his guided tour once), it was the best) and he is now one of the Ravenmasters...

blogger is putting them in it's own order again...

these are from round the side of the White Tower 

where you can see the splashing blood (I think that's what it's meant to be )  up closer 

it's stunning

from the path 

I had a variety of lenses with me ! 

crown jewels are in here, but I wasn't stopping there today

I went back round to the front of the White Tower 

I stood on the concrete block the Warders use when they stop at this part on their tours, to get a higher angle 

I could see that Beefy 409 had changed out of his uniform into what looked like a white haz-mat suit.... and there was a camera crew with him...

time to go round to the ravens and see what was happening 

I thought these 2 might be the new chicks they've just announced and are introducing to the rest of the Tower ravens, but not sure,  they were in a cage with Poppy's name tag on,  

the film crew weren't close enough to hear what they were telling Scott to do, other than when they got him to go in the next (empty) case to film him mucking it out.....

I hung around a bit but gave up after a while. 

when I got back up to the top of the steps by the White Tower, Scott was getting a hose out no doubt the reason for the white suit...

peeking through a gap in the fence 

this is about all you can see of the poppies from outside the Tower,  (so you do have to pay to see them this time, unlike in 2014 when the Moat was full of them. 

I decided to head back to the stations.

the Shard

Tower Bridge

next time I'll go down into the Moat - at present you can only walk partway round it as there aren't many flowers out yet, but apparently later on you will again be able to go right round

I wasn't really sure where to go next... headed back to the tube station.

the first train in was a train to Richmond.  well, how handy is that, Kew is the stop before Richmond....

so ....

oh look....

the planting is all finished (well, I think, not sure if there is any more to go in the 2 big beds in the middle of each section , there is a lot of space round the outside .

so, let's go see the titan arum... 

yesterday when I was in the Palm House I had the wrong lens on to take a photo of these signboards

they are setting out the repair work they are planning for the Palm House and the Waterlily House next year,

hope you can enlarge it to read it... it's going to take 5 years apparently 

disappointing.   it was more closed than yesterday, meaning even yesterday I must have missed it and it must have opened on Wednesday

ah well... still pretty spectacular though 

I took a few more photos inside the Palm House 

and then sat outside on a bench and finished my drink I had taken with me (for a change!) 

as it was sunny and I had the zoom with me I went round to the fountain

there was a bit of a goose creche going on by the pond

seem to have taken this one on the wonk!!  

given the forecast tomorrow, there won't be any opportunity for shots like this!  I will probably leave the zoom at home 

I went up the hill to the Temple of Aeolus (blogger is reversing them again this is on my way back down!!)

to get a view of the Evolution Garden now there is more colour to see. this is the top of the pergola, and the roses 

zooming in to some of the peonies

it's a great view from up there. 

down the hill and into the Princess of Wales - window cleaning finished so you could go in to the cacti and arid section today

Kim's favourite cacti, but it's still not doing lots!  

upper level, passionflower 

orchids

the girl who does botanical art was there in the orchid room

alpine house

rock garden faves!  

california poppies along the veg garden

raven digging for worms

checked out the wildflower border -  the further end has more poppies out

and some cornflowers have appeared (although I didn't walk the entire length of it yesterday so may have been there then too)

poppies in the evolution garden 

couldn't do what I wanted today and stand on the bench as there was a couple of visitors sitting there eating lunch! 

loads of bees on this

astrantia

peony

foxglove to finish with 

thanks for looking - pack your brolly tomorrow we might be getting wet!