Imperial London sketches from the history of a great city
Kew Gardens

London's Botanical Gardens in 1900: Kew Gardens

This is what Arthur H. Beavan found to say about Kew Gardens in Imperial London, first published in 1901:

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Many botanical gardens could be mentioned more superficially attractive than those at Kew; for instance, Ceylon's wonderful collection of tropical vegetation at Paradenia and Kandy; the Botanical Gardens at Buitenzorg in Java; or the superb Jardin des Plantes of Rio de Janeiro under the shadow of the Corcovardo mountain, with its groves of cinnamon and cloves, bread-fruit and camphor-trees, and its unsurpassed avenue, a quarter of a mile long, of royal palms (Oreodoxa regia), a natural colonnade with bright green capitals 100 feet aloft.

But for scientific usefulness, Kew Gardens are universally recognized as the centre of the botanical world, an exchange where the rarest plants are received from remotest regions and distributed to other collections at home and abroad.

These noble gardens, easily accessible from London, (five miles from Hyde Park corner), are divided into sections - the Botanic, and the Arboretum, 70 and 178 acres respectively.

The principal entrance is from Kew Green; but from the District Railway, Cumberland Gate is the nearest.

In the Botanic portion of the Gardens are three Museums containing all kinds of rare woods, and specimens of every economic vegetable product under the sun.

Including the grand Palm House, there are eight conservatories; and, constituting a new range, the same number of houses for heaths, economic plants, etc.

Kew has a glorious avenue of Deodaras; a Rock garden; a wild garden; an herbaceous ground close to the Cumberland Gate entrance, where, sheltered by lofty walls, every kind of herb, and even familiar weeds, also specimens of tobacco, are grown; a charming ornamental water; three temples or stone summer-houses (of the Sun, of Aeolus, and of Bellona); Directors' and Curators' office; and an herbarium and students' garden.

In the Arboretum, carpeted in spring and summer with wild flowers, is the Temperate House for sub-tropical trees and shrubs, ie from Australia, the Cape, Japan, etc; the celebrated Pagoda, and King William IV's Temple; a beautiful lake; and, planted with strict attention to classification, every kind of tree and shrub that will grow out-of-doors in our climate without shelter, the conifers being particularly well represented, though they suffer from the soot that is almost as plentiful at Kew as in mid-London.

The beeches, limes, planes, and hollies are also noble specimens.

There are people who go to Kew Gardens only in the month of May, and perhaps they are right; but they miss the early blossoms of February and March.

It is true that in May the azaleas are in flower, the lawns are powdered with daisies, and the trees have put on a robe of diaphanous green.

Wild hyacinths carpet the beech-grove; rhododendrons, opal, white and deep red, glow amidst the tall grasses in the shrubbery, and bluebells and lilies-of-the-valley hide among feathery ferns.

But even in February there are buds and blossoms to delight the eye, and mark the coming of Spring; these are specially noticeable in that most attractive bit of garden, the big rockery near Cumberland Gate.

In this sheltered corner the primrose flourishes, and masses of vivid green and yellow and red cover the rocks, from the crevices of which spring star-like flowers and delicate tendrils of green.

The primula with its serrated green leaf puts forth its yellow flower, and purple blossoms appear on the Pulmonaria saccharata, which is something like a forget-me-not.

Then there are the Leucojum vernum, or snowflake, first cousin of the snowdrop, though taller; the Scilla Siberica, with its pretty blue flower; the Prirnula denticulata; and the Chionodoxa Sardiensis, with its dark blue flower.

Next: Botanical London in 1900: Kew Gardens: The Palm House

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