LITTLE ARTY JOURNEYS: Kew on Tuesday with my cousin (Part 2)

I have separated my Kew photos into two sections as there were so many. Here are some of the plant photos....but I will refer to Chihuly here too as his work is so relevant. If you would like to see the previous post showing Chihuly's glass sculptures it can be found HERE

Castor oil plant near the entrance gate.

Gorgeous Indian bean tree flowers. (The colours remind me of horse chestnut flowers)

I love the way some have orange markings while others are red.

Layers of plants in big drifts across the flower beds.

Sage of some sort.

Lovely purply tinge on these

So easy to see where some of Chihuly's inspiration could have come from for his glass sculptures.

Love the patterns on these and the fact that there is room at Kew for big drifts of the same plant. It makes such an impact.

Another example of plant structure that could have inspired Chihuly's glass shapes.

A lovely informal look here.

Sunlight through pink echinacea petals.

Red and purple.

People at work.

Golden grasses.

A possible candidate for a glass sculpture idea?

There were plenty of happy bees around.

I love these!

Looking closer. Pink anthers.

First look at the big orange/red shaggy globe, its colours echoed in the planters around the pond.

Flower beds - formal and very neat - colours carried across them all with different but symmetrical arrangements - some with red in the middle and purple around the edge, others with purple in the middle and red around the edge.

I think this is mornng glory in the middle. Beautiful!

I think we're in the waterlily house here. Even though I was really interested in the white glass sculpture in there I did notice a few other things - these leaves had lovely clear vein patterns.

Pink trumpet like flowers with darker middles and water droplets.

Tiny white flowers with ragged edges and purple middles

Water lilies.

Lotus flower and incredible middles! Wonderful structures.

Some sort of gourd - similar to the snake gourd I grew a couple of years ago but mine was green not yellow.

Another fabulous leaf.

Lotus flower.

More of the pink trumpet shaped flowers.

Gourd.

Back outside - a mask with edges that fragment into leaf shapes - it seems to blend into the hedge behind it.

A much needed stop for cake - it was lovely! (We stopped for lunch later on - had a really nice sandwich and fruit or yoghurt.)

Funny flattened acorns (its a different kind of oak - forgotten the name sorry.)

And again I can see how nature inspires Chihuly's sculptures.

Included mainly because I want to remember what these are - I've seen some at Coombe Wood. It's a type of lavender!

Agapanthus - pale blue.

I think we're in the Temperate House now. Oh my goodness - what a flower!

And these. The flowers are huge in here!

My cousin photographing the enormous creamy trumpets. There's a tub of these giant flowers each side as you come in (or out!)

Showers of flowers dripping from stems every where.

How unusual to have such a colour difference in one flower head.

Ooooh - just had to pause and photograph these!

Outside again - a butterfly flitted around and like the others we had seen it refused to open its wings for a photograph.

The pagoda.

This reminded me of a stylised drawing of a tudor rose.

Swan and cygnets - 7 of them! My cousin goes to Kew regularly and seen them grow up from very small.

Dragonfly

Back to the swans.

Ducklings

The duckligs didn't seem keen to be near their mum while she was having an enegetic splashy bath.

Part of the coupling dance of dragonflies (damsel flies)

Wonderful smoke bush against blue sky. It was so hot = we were melting!

Monkey puzzle inflorescences.

What an amazing rose!

Huge cacti.

More inspiration for Chihuly glass shapes.

Cactus flowers.

Little hint - if leaning to photograph little red cactus flowers don't reach out to this tree trunk to steady yourself. You'll end up with spikes in your hand! (Like I did! Ouch!)

Lots of work going on around Kew on Tuesday - some pond clearing here.

These lily pads are incredible - they're like giant flan cases!

Spiky around the red outside.

Young onese seem to be red - and later turn green nside.

Crazy middle!

I was thrilled to see a water dragon - took photos from all angles!

It's on the wall just to the right of centre.

Dragged myself away - this is a crazy plant!

Just look at that middle!

Subtle.

Wow!

Long skinny bean like structures.

Lovely curls.

Big red flowers - (gladioli? Seeing lots of flowers I'm not so familiar with.)

Scrumptious colour combinations.

And the contrast of tiny delicate flowers on slender stems.

We could hear water sprinklers and were attracted to them as it was so hot. Here we could get closer than we could to some of the others - I stood quite near to get the benefit of the spray.