Kew Gardens

Although we do not yet see the spring climate in London, since winter still persists, it is March...who knows maybe this post will 'bring' better weather. Kew Gardens complies of three hundred acres of botanical gardens, which is located on the south bank of the Thames River between Richmond and Kew in the suburbs of South-West London. 

The gardens are Royal, the official name being 'The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew',  because for many years the estates that now form the gardens were owned by members of Britain's Royal Family. King George II and Queen Caroline lived at the Richmond Estate (one of the two estates - the other being Kew Estate -  which form the Royal Botanic Gardens). Their son and heir, Prince Frederick, leased the neighbouring Kew estate in the 1730's.  

Under King George III and under his unofficial director Joseph Bank, Kew Gardens flourished. Banks dispatched botanical collectors across the world to collect unusual, rare and interesting specimens. This resulted in the transformation of Kew Gardens into a depository of the world's plant species and a centre of botanical research. After their death the Gardens declined, until they were handed over to the state in 1840.

The Royal Botanical Gardens, hence, came into being in 1841. Sir William Hooker was the man charged with running the gardens. He was responsible for founding the Museum, the Department of Economic Botany, the Library and the Herbarium. 

In 1848 the Palm House was introduced in the Kew Gardens, followed by the Temperature House in 1860. It is a copy of the Crystal Palace, which was erected during the Victorian Period for the Great Exhibition in 1851, which was the starting point of the modern global capitalist system.

Today it maintains the largest plant collection in the world. Kew Gardens remains one of the world's premier public gardens.