One of my favourite bits of Kew is the cycad display. I love to see them in their longtom pots, engraved with "Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew" all round the rim. As lovely as they look in the naturalistically planted beds in the Palm House and Temperate House, you can really appreciate the shape of them in a pot.
So imagine my dismay:
All shut off and the cycads moved down the aisles! Going round to the entrance though I got an explanation:
And then I took the opportunity to sneak a look through the window at Encephalartos altensteinii, the oldest cycad at Kew!
The glass of the palm house is cloudy (steamed up or actually tinted a bit to reduce the glare from the sun?), but you can get an idea of just how much work goes into keeping E. altensteinii upright - they must have been swapping tips with the people who keep the Major Oak going.
Just look at that ironwork!
The reason for the Macbeth-esque movement of plant matter? E. altensteinii was being repotted yesterday. I am never going to complain about having to pot up any of my plants having read what they have to do at Kew!
So imagine my dismay:
All shut off and the cycads moved down the aisles! Going round to the entrance though I got an explanation:
And then I took the opportunity to sneak a look through the window at Encephalartos altensteinii, the oldest cycad at Kew!
The glass of the palm house is cloudy (steamed up or actually tinted a bit to reduce the glare from the sun?), but you can get an idea of just how much work goes into keeping E. altensteinii upright - they must have been swapping tips with the people who keep the Major Oak going.
Just look at that ironwork!
The reason for the Macbeth-esque movement of plant matter? E. altensteinii was being repotted yesterday. I am never going to complain about having to pot up any of my plants having read what they have to do at Kew!
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