🍀Kew Gardens, Richmond, London, TW9 3AE
🍀 Tickets start from £20 for adults and £9 for students

On a sunny summer's day in London, let's take an art trip on demand. Kew Gardens, about an hour and a half from central London, is a great place to combine art and nature. Here is not only a feast of plants and flowers, but also a pleasant aesthetic journey.

Perhaps the most remarkable building in Kew Gardens is the Palm House, a large vaulted glass conservatory. The greenhouse is dominated by tropical plants such as palm trees, and you can also climb to the second floor to see the full view of the greenhouse. Built in the mid-19th century, it was the first structure to use cast iron on a large scale and is "the most important surviving Victorian glass and iron structure in the world".

Temperature House: The largest greenhouse and a landmark of Kew Gardens. I saw a lot of plants that I did not feed myself. From time to time, the staff explained the location of the greenhouse atrium and learned different pollination methods of plants.

Great Pagoda: True to its name, it's decorated with a lot of dragons and feels more like a dog... (Sorry, the tower has a total of eight floors, 253 rotating steps, the top can see the full picture of Temperature House and the surrounding scenery from above, but the personal feeling is not very necessary...

Treetop Walkway: Continuing to climb the stairs is an aerial walkway, which also has a lot of interesting animal and plant knowledge.

Lake Crossing: Not far from Treetop Walkway, there are many different kinds of birds and birds living in the lake, there are also swans and so on, you can sit and rest.

Waterlily House: It's a very small greenhouse with many different kinds of lotus flowers. In the middle of the greenhouse is a big royal lotus tree.

Princess of Wales Conservatory: The famous giant taro is here! Some time ago, a plant has just opened, and the day before yesterday when I went to another plant has grown to 1.22 meters, it should not be long before it can bloom.

At the end of the souvenir shop, there are a lot of plants and related books to sell, and also sell napkin hand cream recommended by many people, etc. Because the bottle is beautiful, I tried Honey Vodka, emmm does not know how to describe it.

There is also a history of architectural design that must be mentioned here. In 1851, the London Expo, which had a profound influence on modern aesthetics, used iron frames and glass to build a refreshing and futuristic exhibition space, which was known as the "Crystal Palace". The designer of the Expo site, Paxton, is a gardener, in other words, he built a large greenhouse. The Expo space was demolished after the exhibition, and today when we visit the "Palm House", we can re-imagine the surprise and shock that people had when they faced this new beauty of industrial society.

Having said all that, the main reason for my visit to Kew Gardens is to see the outdoor sculptures of sculptor Marc Quinn. The smooth mirror-like reflection of Quinn's oversized stainless steel palm leaf blurs the line between viewer, sculpture and landscape, allowing each visitor to see themselves as part of the artwork and landscape. However, in the process of looking at these works, I can always feel very strongly that this is a male artist's creative aesthetics, and the big palm leaves are placed directly opposite the greenhouse.


In addition to the Marc Quinn special exhibition, which is currently on display, the park is also dotted with permanent sculptures, which is a pleasant surprise for this trip. For example, artist Simon Gudgeon's Leaf Spirit, Wolfgang Buttress's Hive, walk into the high wildflowers on both sides of the field including the sound of buzzing bees, quite an immersive experience.

On the other side of the park is the Chinese Pagoda, built in 1762 as a result of Kew Gardens founder Sir William Chambers' study of East Asian architecture. There is a combination of Chinese and Western dragons along the top of the tower that is called "ugly and unique" by netizens. You can go to see hhh if you are interested.