I love weird plants.
Cacti, venus fly traps, giant lillies, give me them all! The holy grail site of weird, wonderful, tropical and exotic plants has to be Kew Gardens, London. A UNESCO World Heritage Site: the glasshouses and greenhouses of Kew hold unique collections of plants from all over the world. It’s like a gigantic plant museum, except the plants are VERY much alive and at times it feels as if you could be wading through the jungles of South America with plant tendrils and leafs dripping from the ceiling, and sprouting out across the paths. In fact at times I did have the faintest of flashbacks to the the ‘Day of the Triffids’ , the famous novel and film in which an aggressive species of plant takes over the world in a post-apocalyptic drama. Thankfully though, these plants seem happy to stay confined to the grounds of Kew and have not yet planned world domination!
The main attraction which I was adamant I wanted to see at Kew was definitely the infamous giant Amazonian waterlillies. I remember spotting a picture of them as a child in a guidebook, and thinking wow! Stepping out into our garden at the time, the little, rather limp looking lilly pads in our own pond somehow couldn’t quite compare. So here we are, 2017, and having finally seen them I can confirm they are quite magnificent-the stuff of explorer’s dreams. Visiting somewhere like Kew reminded me just how extraordinary the world of plants really is, it really is a jungle out there!
Sarah Clews Photography 