Royal Botanic Gardens (Kew)

The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew ( Kew Gardens ) are a vast park with significant greenhouses; they are located between Richmond upon Thames and Kew in southwest London, and one of the oldest botanical gardens in the world. There are there to see many plants that are not native to Europe or the northern hemisphere. In addition to the world-famous Victorian greenhouses can be found in Kew Gardens also large parks with ancient rhododendron plants. The numbers of visitors are now at 1-2 million per year. More recently, Kew Gardens is also dedicated to intensive goals of environmental education, research and conservation.

  • 4.1 General Offers

History

The Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew owe their origin to the exotic gardens, the Lord Capel of Tewkesbury at Kew docked. They were of Princess Augusta of Saxe- Gotha -Altenburg, the Friedrich Ludwig widow of the Prince of Wales, significantly expanded. The gardens were pleasure gardens, under Augusta they served for the first time ever as a botanical gardens. This work was carried out by William Chambers; a 1762 built by him Chinese pagoda still stands today. King George III. presented to William Aiton and Joseph Banks, to further expand the gardens.

1840, the gardens were reclassified as a national botanical garden and significantly extended. He subsequently produced also the herbarium and library. On 3 July 2003 the Royal Botanic Gardens were included by UNESCO in the list of world cultural heritage.

Description

The greenhouses

According to the plans of the English architect Decimus Burton developed in the 19th century in Kew Gardens several greenhouses. Built in 1841-1849 Palm House ( tropical house ) is the oldest surviving Victorian glasshouse. It is home to palm trees and other plant species of the humid tropics of Africa, America, Asia, Australia and the Pacific region and is consistently well attended. Sensitive people ( cardiovascular difficulties, difficulty breathing) should stay there too long, given the humidity of almost one hundred percent and the high temperatures. Well worth seeing in the Palm House, the aquarium in the basement, where exotic fish and other aquatic life can be observed.

Built in 1859-1863 Temperate House ( German: House of temperate climates ) is about twice as large as the Palm House and making it the largest of the greenhouses at Kew with 4880 m². There grow plants from South Africa, Australia, America, New Zealand, Asia and the Lord Howe Island, and among other things, with a 16 m high, drawn from a seed Wine Palm ( Jubaea chilensis ) is the highest, growing in a greenhouse palm in the world. As rarest type of the Temperate House is considered the native to Africa cycads Encephalartos woodii.

The third major greenhouse is the Princess of Wales Conservatory. It was opened in commemoration of the Gartenbegründerin Princess Augusta in 1987 by Princess Diana. It houses plants of all ten tropical climates, from deserts to the always wet rainforests. Under its roof, major tropical plants, orchids and carnivorous plants are united. Special attractions are the titan arum ( Amorphophallus titanum ) with the world's largest flower and another basin with Amazonian water lilies.

In addition, several smaller greenhouses exist, including Evolution House north of the Temperate House and the Constructed in 1852 Waterlily House ( German: water lilies house). The latter houses, named after the Queen of England great Amazon Water Lily (Victoria amazonica ) and other tropical aquatic plants and is accessible only in the summer. In the southeast of the park is the Davies Alpine House opened in 2006. It offers plants of the high mountains optimal growth conditions.

The lake

The small lake in Kew Gardens, as almost all of the scenic performances in the gardens, created artificially. It offers many different and unusual, water birds a living and breeding ground and is especially worth seeing during the mating and nesting season.

Queen Charlotte 's Cottage

This small country house is named for its first owner, Queen Charlotte, the wife of King George III. The house was a wedding gift for Charlotte and was used by the Royal Family as a picnic shelter, at no time but as a residence. The interior is open to visitors on certain days available.

Kew Palace

Kew Palace is the only one of the formerly three royal palaces, which still stands today. The palace was built in 1631 was bought by King George II as a kind of kindergarten.

The only king, who himself lived in the old Kew Palace, the "White House", George III was. This home was built in 1802 partially demolished. In 1811, when George III. mentally ill and blind, moved the. in the palace of Windsor Castle and stayed there until his death in 1820

Due to its Flemish appearance of the palace Dutch House ( dutch house ) is called. The palace was renovated released after ten years on 27 April 2006 for the public again. The cost of the restoration of the house in the style of the early 18th century amounted to the equivalent of 9.6 million euros. Queen Elizabeth II celebrated the evening of 21 April 2006 closest family members in the newly restored Kew Palace, her 80th birthday. Behind the building you will find Queen's Garden ( Garden of the Queen ), a herb garden, growing in the medicinal herbs that have been used in the 17th century.

The Chokushi -Mon

The Chokushi - Mon ( "The Gate of the imperial envoys " ) is a scaled replica of the Karamon ( "Chinese Gate" ), main entrance of the Nishi Hongan -ji in Kyoto. It was built in 1910 for the Japanese -British Exhibition in London, then dismantled and re-erected in Kew Gardens. The gate was designed in the style of the Azuchi - Momoyama period (late 16th century). The crafted wooden door has a lot of hand-carved parts. These represent mainly flowers and animals, but also an ancient Chinese legend dar.

Surrounded the Chokushi - Mon is a Japanese rock garden in the style of the 16th century. This consists of three parts, the " Garden of Peace ", the " Garden of activity" and the "Garden of Harmony", where various aspects of Japanese gardens are presented.

The Pagoda

In the southeast of Kew Gardens, the built in 1762 to designs by William Chambers and the Chinese model brick pagoda is (The Chinese Pagoda ). The construction is almost 50 meters high and has at the bottom a maximum diameter of 15 meters. After several years of closure, the pagoda is re-opened for visitors since 2006 and can be climbed via a staircase with 253 steps.

The bamboo gardens

In Kew Gardens bamboo grow about 120 different species. In the center of this complex is a small traditional Japanese house. Around the house, between the plantations, some things made ​​of bamboo can be seen, such as wind chimes and a xylophone.

The Rock Garden

The Rock Garden was created in 1882. Later, the limestone was replaced with sandstone, since the latter can hold more water. This also moisture- loving plants could be planted in the rock garden. Today, the rock garden is home moisture -loving plants and alpine plants from all continents.

Exhibitions

Near the tropical house there is a small museum, the Museum no. 1, ( German: plants and humans ) the permanent exhibition Plants and People shows. This shows how humanity has made ​​plants advantage.

A second permanent exhibition at the Marianne North Gallery shows images of this artist, who is very well traveled and has almost exclusively painted images of nature. The special feature of the exhibition is that the building was built exclusively for this purpose and the images are made ​​out to " Victorian " style, which means that they completely adorn frame to frame the walls.

Besides these two permanent exhibitions, there are various exhibitions of art, usually sculpture, outdoors and in greenhouses.

Thematic plantations

Scattered throughout the park you will find systems in which certain plants are pulled. Among other is located behind the Tropical House, a rose garden laid out in 1923 in which more than ten different types of roses are cultivated. Near the bamboo gardens is a large-scale planting of rhododendron, Rhododendron Dell, which contains over 700 different specimens. There is also a holly avenue (English: Holly Walk ). This is more than a kilometer long and consists of full-grown holly, most of which are already over 135 years old.

Other thematic plantings are the azalea garden (English Azalea Garden), the Lilac Garden ( Lilac Garden ), in which 105 species are cultivated and Colour Spectrum ( German: color spectrum ), in which each color of the rainbow is represented by different plants. The Mediterrean Garden ( Mediterranean garden ) houses mainly shrubs and herbs from the Mediterranean. The Waterlily Pond ( lily pond ), the flowering of various plants in the spring pond is surrounded by the Woodland Glade, where among other conifer species also redwoods grow.

Scientific Importance

Kew, as gardens are now known among botanists, has an extensive seed bank. Together with the Herbarium of Harvard University and the Australian National Herbarium Kew Gardens at the IPNI database are determined by which binding name of the plant and made available.

Education and training

General offers

As usual in the botanical gardens, the plants are provided with information plates in Kew Gardens. These include the commonly used English name of the plant, the botanical name and, if the plant has been imported, the place of origin. Information sheets on specific plants, projects or buildings at the Royal Botanic Gardens are available, most are also accessible online.

Furthermore, Kew Gardens offers a range of short courses, study days and readings. Topics include botany, horticulture, nature and plant photography and illustration.

On the thematic playground, Climbers and Creepers, children learn how plants feed and reproduce. You can experience in and on oversized plant models the plant world from the perspective of insects there. The models are interactive and respond to movement and the like.

Reception

The worldwide fame of the British Kew Gardens led among others to the fact that in Toronto, Canada, an entrepreneur named his amusement and recreation park on Lake Ontario The Canadian Kew Gardens in the second half of the 19th century. These parks are in a slightly different form still, since the acquisition by the city council in 1907 as a public park Kew Gardens.

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