London: Kew Gardens in Spring

14 March 2014

Map provided at entrance; spring bulb map can be downloaded from www.kew.org.

Half day

This visit was focussed primarily on naturalised spring bulbs, but there was also much else of interest.

Several species of "Glory of the snow" (formerly Chionodoxa, but now subsumed under Scilla) are well naturalised.  They differ from other squills by having the petals joined for a short distance into a tube, not separated to the base.  Naming and identification is rather problematic because of differences between the Royal Horticultural Society website and Stace's Flora, Stace subsuming Scilla siehei under S. forbesii, while RHS (and the Kew signage) still refers to siehei.  To complicate matters siehei/forbesii is often sold as S. luciliae, yet another species!  The final species is S. sardensis which is the most distinct in not having a marked white eye in the centre of the blue-violet petals, although we found that the base of the petals was often pale whitish and they could appear from a distance as having a white eye!  They were extensively naturalised around the Woodland Garden area.  (Stace correctly states that the filaments are white, and these also contribute a small white eye, whereas the official RHS description says that the filaments are violet.)

Scilla sardensis

 All the other "Chionodoxas" have a distinct white eye with the white base of the petals coming about a third to half of the way up them.  The easiest species to differentiate is S. luciliae, which has umbels with 1-3 flowers (Stace gives 1-2, RHS gives 2-3), whereas the other species normally have many more (although occasional weaker specimens only have 3).  S. luciliae was naturalised at various places along with sardensis and forbesii/siehei, especially in the grass bordering the path between the Orangery restaurant and the White Peaks café.

Scilla luciliae

 This site has a sign referring to siehei and the other "Chionodoxas" here were certainly S. forbesii (according to Stace's key).  The RHS website does not provide an official description of forbesii, but it does recognise it elsewhere as having smaller and less deeply violet flowers than siehei.  On this basis the plants we saw were forbesii rather than siehei, but the comparison is too vague to be useful.  Altogether confusing!

Scilla forbesii

 Squills proper can be compared to "Chionodoxa" by going to the Cherry Walk at the east end of the Temperate House, where Siberian squill Scilla sibirica is well naturalised, their flowers characteristically facing downwards, which usefully distinguishes them from our other naturalised squills.

Siberian squill

 Crocuses are also well naturalised here.  We were a little late for the early crocus Crocus tommasinianus which is perhaps the most extensively naturalised, as it is elsewhere, as it seems to spread readily by seed.  It was very evident along Princess Walk, but most of them were over.

Early crocus

The other crocuses were best seen in the length of grass extending east to Victoria Gate, where there were several varieties of the Dutch crocus C. vernus, including 'Purpureus Grandiflorus', the striped 'Pickwick' and the white 'Jeanne d'Arc'.

Crocuses 'Purpureus Grandiflorus' and 'Pickwick'

 The other bulbs of interest were the daffodils.  Our native Narcissus pseudonarcissus is naturalised at the Woodland Garden and many other places.

Narcissus pseudonarcissus

 The other possible native, Tenby daffodil N. obvallaris, is conspicuous at the north end of Princess Walk.  It has deep yellow petals, whereas pseudonarcissus has very pale ones.

Tenby daffodils

 The most extensively planted of the earlier-flowering daffodils here is, like everywhere else, 'February Gold', massed along Broad Walk and also in the formal planting of the Parterre in front of the Palm House.  Near Victoria Gate we also saw 'Topolino'.

'February Gold'

'Topolino'

 In the Conservation Area in the SW corner of the gardens, and around Queen Charlotte's Cottage, we also saw the odd specimen of 'Bridal Crown' and 'Telamonius Plenus', both of which have proliferating petals in the centre instead of a trumpet.

'Bridal Crown'

'Telamonius Plenus'

Otherwise the variety of daffodils in the open here was rather limited, compared, say, to Saville Gardens at Windsor.  More, however, were to be seen under glass in the Davies Alpine House by the Princess of Wales Conservatory.  Here were N. bulbocodium and N. jonquilla, both of which can survive here out-of-doors (although probably flowering later), along with N. fernandesii and N. papyraceus from the Iberian Peninsula, which may be more temperature sensitive.

Narcissus bulbocodium

 Narcissus jonquilla

 Narcissus fernandesii

 Narcissus papyraceus

 The other exotic plants on display here included many spectacular ones, such as the tulips Tulipa kaufmanniana, T. bakeri and T. aitchisonii; the crocus Romulea bulbocodium; and a yellow fritillary Fritillaria carica.

Tulipa aitchisonii

Fritillaria carica

Having had our fill of bulb-plants - the snowdrops were over, although there were some clumps of summer snowflake Leucojum aestivum - we could concentrate on other features of interest, such as the early-flowering shrubs.  There is a group of many varieties of magnolia just west of Princess Walk, and these were just now perfectly in flower.  They are not our favourite plant, but we had to admit this display was impressive, especially the conjunction against a blue sky of the pink M. campbellii and the white M. heptapeta.  They included one magnolia M. x kewensis named after Kew Gardens where it was developed as a hybrid between M. kobus and M. salicifolia (although this hybrid has been found in the wild in Japan).

Magnolia campbellii & heptapeta

Magnolia x kewensis

Magnolia sprengeri

In the Rhododendron Dell only a few bushes had yet begun flowering, namely the white R. fastuosum and the bright pink R. pulcherrimum.  Here (and elsewhere) was also the familiar Camellia japonica in the form of various cultivars.  Under them lungwort Pulmonaria officinalis was often the dominant ground plant.

Rhododendron fastuosum

Rhododendron pulcherrimum

Camellia japonica

Other flowering shrubs around the gardens included Higan cherry Prunus subhirtella, popular with Japanese tourists, and the common garden quince Chaenomeles x superba 'Crimson & Gold'.

Higan cherry

Quince 'Crimson & Gold'

Low plants other than bulbs were not frequent - the only natives or long-established British plants in flower, other than lungwort, were daisy Bellis perennis, groundsel Senecio vulgaris, hairy bittercress Cardamine hirsuta, small nettle Urtica urens (abundant on bark mulch under some of the trees), and red dead-nettle Lamium purpureum.  Also on bark mulch in one spot was an unseasonal group of glistening inkcap Coprinus micaceus.

Red dead-nettle

Glistening inkcaps

Although Kew Gardens does not date back as far as many other parks and arboreta, it still has many grand old "heritage" trees.  One group of Atlas cedars Cedrus atlantica was notable for having many young plants around them, showing that were capable of regenerating from seed and becoming naturalised.

Atlas cedars with regenerating offspring

A special tree is Turner's oak Quercus x turneri, a hybrid between our common Q. robur and evergreen oak Q. ilex, created in an Essex nursery in 1783.  The original specimen at Kew was planted in 1798 and is flourishing despite storm damage in 1987, after which supporting struts had to be put in.  It is 15m high.  Staff here have propagated many other specimens from this tree, and these can be seen around the gardens.  The leaves of this tree showed the mines of Ectoedemia heringiella, a Mediterranean moth feeding on evergreen oak, that was first seen in Britain as recently as 1996 (in the grounds of the Natural History Museum in London), but is increasingly widespread in the south.

Turner's oak planted 1798

Turner's oak leaves with mines of Ectoedemia heringella

Another hybrid oak commonly planted in the 18-19th centuries was Lucombe oak, and one planted here in 1776 is still doing well.

Lucombe oak planted 1776

Naturally there are several London planes Platanus x hispanica and one of its parents, oriental plane Platanus orientalis.  One of the latter here dates back to 1762.

Other trees we noted included swamp cypress Taxodium distichum, by the lakes, with its characteristic aerial shoots emerging from the water; Japanese pagoda tree Styphnolobium japonicum (from China!), of which a specimen here from 1760 is supported in an almost horizontal position and seems to have once been burned at the base; weeping beech Fagus sylvatica 'Pendula'; and an early C18th sweet chestnut Castanea sativa, the oldest tree at Kew.

Swamp cypress

Sweet chestnut, oldest tree at Kew

We paid a special visit after lunch at the Orangery Restaurant to the nearby rare Wollemi pine Wollemia nobilis, in its metal cage, where it was planted in 1997 shortly after its discovery in Australia, although only known previously from 2 million-year-old fossils.  We first saw it shortly after it was planted, dwarfed by its cage, but now it fills the protective cage and far overtops it, freely producing cones.  Seedlings are available in the garden shop (but could become very large trees!).

Wollemi pine cone

Apart from plants we also saw a variety of water birds around the lakes - Egyptian, Canada and greylag geese; mallard, pochard and tufted ducks; coot and moorhen.  With a previous week of sunshine various overwintering butterflies were flying, with brimstones particularly common.

Egyptian goose and brood

Greylag geese

Finally we should mention the imposing fungus sculptures made from willow twigs by Tom Hare, scattered in groups in the centre of the gardens, blending in well with the botanical scenery.

Tom Hare willow sculptures

Palm House and lake, Kew Gardens