Adieu to Kew and Fulham Palace Gardens

What a shame people couldn't do the right thing and resist flocking in groups to the places that keep us sane. I hope I've scrupulously observed the social distancing but saw packs picnicking in both places. Well, there's still the bike, and the Royal Parks remain open for now - I understand a rumour about enormous Richmond Park closing was a misreading of roads through being closed to traffic (and what bliss it was on Wednesday to cycle up there and see stags in a stream - more Richmond Glen than Park. But that's for another post).

Anyway, I'm truly thankful for catching the onrush of spring while I could. While I made a conscious effort on Sunday to cycle down to Bishop's Park and Fulham Palace Gardens, knowing closure was imminent for all Hammersmith and Fulham enclosed spaces, it was serendipity that not only did I make the effort to get to Kew once or twice a week, and finally on Saturday, when there was no warning of what was about to happen (but again, I can't blame them).

First visit on a bitterly cold, showery, intermittently sunny February day, passing early-blossoming Prunus subhirtella 'Pendula rubra'

and carpets of the Greek Scilla forbesii (glory-of-the-snow) beneath the Temple of Aeolus

was mostly Alpine House, rockery and magnolia grove centric. Irises and Mediterranean tulips were flourishing outside, and these saxifrages

while under glass much was made of the heavenly-scented Narcissus papyraceus

and a couple of anemones were flowering early. Pulsatillas next.

Steps quickened,  as black clouds loomed beyond the sunshine, towards the magnolias. Coming from the north, the one you tend to see first is Iolanthe, beautifully budding.

Then there's the grove over the lawn, dominated on that first visit by Magnolia campbellii, the pink tulip tree. Trust the remarkable Joseph Hooker to be behind it. He introduced the tree to Kew in 1848, the information tells us, 'naming it after his friend Dr. Archibald Campbell, Political Resident at Darjeeling, India, as a result of an eventful expedition they took through the eastern Himalayas'.

Around the Big One, others were in various stages of flower and bud.

That ensured revisits. My second trip focused on Magnolia X loebneri, 'Raspberry Fun' (maybe stick to the Latin name)

while there were pearls on a line from Magnolia cylindrica

Magnolia X soulangeana further north

is more or less opposite Iolanthe, flourishing on that second visit.

and here's the other side of the pine, where Acer opalus, the Italian maple, is beginning to flourish.

Third visit was to catch the cherry blossom around the Temperate House, so heading south. The vegetation around the Temple of Bellona had evolved in a fortnight.

There are more magnolias here, including a high-towering soulangeana (understandably sub-specied as superba)

and a tree coming into leaf with which I wasn't familiar, Tilia heterophylla or White Basswood, from south-eastern America.

So to the cherry avenues. The one north of the Temperate House is still in bud, but my absolute favourite, the profuse and fluffy Yoshino (Prunus X yedoensis), was much frequented - it's often used as a background for shots of models. One with her photographer had cleared off by the time I took this.

In the apple-tree groves few were flourishing, but Malus x purpurea 'eleyi' was shining dark-red with the pagoda in the background.

Another glory is Prunus 'taehaku', the Great White Cherry', in front of the Japanese temple.

We have a man as remarkable as Hooker to thank for its survival. Captain Collingwood 'Cherry' Ingram. There's an excellent article about him by his biographer, Naoko Abe, in the latest Kew magazine. 'Taihaku' became extinct in Japan, but Ingram reintroducd it there from cuttings taken in Sussex. Down the slope there's a cherry bearing his name, 'Prunus Collingwood Ingram'.

More cherry trees flourish at the back of the Palm House,

and in 2017 a group from Gifu prefecture in Japan donated 35 Somei-yoshino trees  which flourish at the edges of the rose garden.

Heading back to the magnolia grove for the third and final time, I found to my amazement that the fritillary meadow had sprouted. There was nothing but grass the previous week, and here were those most fascinating of flowers with their snakeshead/chess-board patterns, in abundance.

One public asset is staying open for the foreseeable future - the park of Chiswick House. The walk there from home took us along a jogger-laden riverside, admiring the gardens separated by the road from their houses on Chiswick Mall, with the curious little eyot beyond.

There's a clump of bushes and shrubs where I always hear the most vocal of blackbird song, but that day it was robin singing its little heart out.

We did our usual circuit of the lake over the splendid bridge, with bird activity lively as ever, and daffodils opposite the back of the temple.

The cafe was still open then - I had a good distance chat with the Polish manager, who said how proud she was of the staff's adapting to (even) higher levels of hygiene, and how good it was to have the park to walk through on her way to and from work - but the camellia house not, for obvious reasons. Soon the wisteria outside it will be blooming in spring's next stage.

but at least there are splendid specimens outside

and quite a few around Fulham Palace.

My farewell visit was too late for the walled garden of Eden, as I always call it (maybe it hadn't opened that day at all),

but not to walk around the outside, for which I'm grateful not only for different perspectives over walls and through gates

but also for the discovery of what had been done to the former no-man's-land between the churchyard and the entrance on that side, a wonderful planting of daffodils

and, thanks to a couple of feeders, a fine presence of birds. I thought this was a goldfinch, but the colourings aren't quite right. UPDATE: Robin Weiss in a comment has identified it as a chaffinch - very common bird, but I wasn't familiar with it beyond the name.

Horse chestnut in the drive beginning to flourish, and that's a farewell to the roof of the palace for now. We're lucky that this is early spring and not autumn declining into winer, to still have our one-a-day exercise, and to be able to take it - in the case of those who can get there without public transport - in the Royal Parks. There was decent space in Kensington Gardens yesterday.

Kew: alpines and magnolias

It's officially the first day of spring, though nature rarely obeys human deadlines; it's dull and cold. There were plenty of signs of life at Kew Gardens the Sunday before last, though, with everything looking sharp and shadows lengthening in the late afternoon sun.  A solitary clump of pulsatillas - appropriately, in Easter week, also known as the pasque flower - was flourishing in the Alpine garden (top image) while some magnolias were doing better than others after some sharp frosts - and there was a little bit less of that moon-in-daylight which had been such a backdrop on a frozen January day.

Now, of course, the crocuses are nearly all over which had provided some of the much-needed colour back on a dark February afternoon

along with the fruit of the monkey-puzzle tree

as well as an early magnolia by the Japanese temple

and the usual gaudy but welcome orchid riot in the Princess of Wales Conservatory.

Now, as then, the impressively-designed Alpine House has to be a main port of call.

A few things flourish outside it, like a meadow of anemones

but the real wonders are within, with generous potted clumps of an exquisitely-marked miniature iris (annoyingly I didn't snap the tag)

an abundance of Scilla peruviana (not from Peru at all, in fact), this one silhouetted in the sun,

and small, perfectly-formed rarities like Saxifraga X megaseiflora 'Jan Neruda'.

Our time was limited, so I thought we should head for two magnolia zones. The first, near the Elizabeth Gate, still included a fine spectacle of Magnolia stellata from a distance

but either frost had blighted the rest, or they were still only in bud.

The spectacular magnolia arboretum, however, did not disappoint, with swathes of daffodils forming a background to the branches

and a few big blowsy flowers not frost-bitten

with giant buds promising more to come.

That moon as pictured up above added delight to the detail of this Magnolia kobus var. borealis, the biggest of the group

and then we hit the tree-lined avenue from the river at Syon back towards the main hothouse. The sun was lighting the way for the last strollers of the day.

On a final floral note, I should note with gladness that my mother passed her 85th birthday test with flying colours and here, for once, I've caught her looking natural and happy at home with the 50 tulips I brought back from Amsterdam the other week.

The Concertgebouw Orkestival narrative, meanwhile, hangs fire, but it's up next for extensive treatment.