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The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, usually referred to simply as Kew Gardens, are extensive gardens and botanical glasshouses between Richmond and Kew in southwest London, England. The director is Professor Stephen D. Hopper, who succeeded Professor Sir Peter Crane. The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew is also the name of the organisation that runs Kew Gardens and Wakehurst Place gardens in Sussex. It is an internationally important botanical research and education institution with 700 staff and an income of £56 million for the year ended 31 March 2008, as well as a visitor attraction receiving almost 2 million visits in that year. The gardens are a non-departmental public body sponsored by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. Created in 1759, the gardens celebrated their 250th anniversary in 2009.
The Director of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, is responsible for the world’s largest collection of living plants. The organisation employs more than 650 scientists and other staff. The living collections include more than 30,000 different kinds of plants, while the herbarium, which is the largest in the world, has over 7 million preserved plant specimens. The library contains more than 750,000 volumes, and the illustrations collection contains more than 175,000 prints and drawings of plants. The Kew site includes four Grade I listed buildings and 36 Grade II listed structures in an internationally significant landscape.
History
Kew Gardens originated in the exotic garden at Kew Park formed by Lord Capel of Tewkesbury. It was enlarged and extended by Augusta, Dowager Princess of Wales, the widow of Frederick, Prince of Wales, for whom Sir William Chambers built several garden structures. One of these, the lofty Chinese pagoda built in 1761 still remains. George III enriched the gardens, aided by William Aiton and Sir Joseph Banks. The old Kew Park (by then renamed the White House), was demolished in 1802. The "Dutch House" adjoining was purchased by George III in 1781 as a nursery for the royal children. It is a plain brick structure now known as Kew Palace.
The collections grew somewhat haphazardly until the appointment of the first collector, Francis Masson, in 1771. In 1840 the gardens were adopted as a national botanical garden. Under Kew's director, William Hooker, the gardens were increased to 30 hectares (75 acres) and the pleasure grounds, or arboretum, extended to 109 hectares (270 acres), and later to its present size of 120 hectares (300 acres).
The Palm House was built by architect Decimus Burton and iron-maker Richard Turner between 1844 and 1848, and was the first large-scale structural use of wrought iron. The structure's panes of glass are all hand-blown. The Temperate house, which is twice as large as the Palm House, followed later in the 19th century. It is now the largest Victorian glasshouse in existence.
Kew was the location of the successful effort in the 19th century to propagate rubber trees for cultivation outside South America. In February 1913 the Tea House was burnt down by Suffragettes Olive Wharry and Lilian Lenton during a series of arson attacks in London.
In October 1987 Kew Gardens lost hundreds of trees in the Great Storm of 1987.
In July 2003, the gardens were put on the list of World Heritage Sites by UNESCO.
Professional activities
Herbarium
The Kew herbarium is one of the largest in the world with approximately 7 million specimens used primarily for taxonomic study. The herbarium is rich in types for all regions of the world, especially the tropics.
The Harvard University Herbaria and the Australian National Herbarium co-operate with Kew in the IPNI database to produce an authoritative source of information on botanical nomenclature.
Seedbank
Kew is important as a seedbank. It co-sponsors the Millennium Seed Bank Project inside the Wellcome Trust Millennium Building at Wakehurst Place in Sussex.
Despite unfavourable growing conditions (atmospheric pollution from London, dry soils and low rainfall) Kew remains one of the most comprehensive plant collections in Britain. In an attempt to expand the collections away from these unfavourable conditions, Kew has established two out-stations, at Wakehurst Place in Sussex, a National Trust property, and (jointly with the Forestry Commission) Bedgebury Pinetum in Kent, the latter specialising in growing conifers.
Library and archives
The library and archives at Kew are one of the world's largest botanical collections, with over half a million items, including books, botanical illustrations, photographs, letters and manuscripts, periodicals, and maps. The Jodrell Library was recently merged with the Economic Botany and Mycology Libraries and all are now housed in the Jodrell Laboratory.
Forensic horticulture
Kew provides advice and guidance to police forces around the world where plant material may provide important clues or evidence in cases.
Attractions
In March 2006 the Davies Alpine House opened, the third version of an alpine house since 1887. The new house features a set of automatically operated blinds that prevent it overheating when the sun is too hot for the plants together with a system that blows a continuous stream of cool air over the plants.
To conserve energy the cooling air is not refrigerated but is cooled by being passed through a labyrinth of pipes buried under the house at a depth where the temperature remains suitable all year round.
Built for the Japan-British Exhibition (1910) and moved to Kew in 1911, the Chokushi-Mon is a four-fifths scale replica of the karamon (gateway) of the Nishi Hongan-ji temple in Kyoto. It lies c. 140m west of the Pagoda, surrounded by a reconstruction of a traditional Japanese garden.
Kew has the largest compost heap in the world, made from green waste from the gardens and the waste from the stables of the Household Cavalry. The compost is mainly used in the gardens but on occasion has been auctioned as part of a fund raising event for the gardens.
The compost heap is in an area of the gardens not accessible to the general public but a viewing platform has been erected to allow visitors to observe the heap as it goes through its cycle.
Free tours of the gardens are conducted by trained volunteers and leave from Victoria Gate at 11am and 2pm every day (except Christmas Day).
This competition is now an annual event with an outdoor display of entries during the summer months.
Kew Palace is the smallest of the British royal palaces. It was built by Samuel Fortrey, a Dutch merchant in around 1631. It was later purchased by George III. The construction method is known as Flemish bond and involves laying the bricks with long and short sides alternating. This and the gabled front tend to give the construction a definite Dutch appearance.
To the rear of the building is the "Queen's Garden" which includes a collection of plants believed to have medicinal qualities. No plants that were not extant in England before the seventeenth century are grown in the garden.
The building underwent significant restoration before being opened to the public in 2006.
It is administered separately from the gardens and is the only permanently open attraction within the grounds that requires an additional fee to view.
Main article: Kew PalaceFollowing the Japan 2001 festival, Kew acquired a Japanese wooden house called a minka. It was originally erected in around 1900 in a suburb of Okazaki. Japanese craftsmen reassembled the framework and British builders who had worked on the Globe Theatre added the mud wall panels.
Work on the house started on the seventh of May 2001 and when the framework was completed on the twenty first of May in the same year a Japanese ceremony was held to mark what was considered an auspicious occasion. Work on the building of the house was completed in November 2001 but the internal artifacts were not all in place until 2006.
The Minka house is located within the bamboo collection in the West central part of the gardens.
The Marianne North Gallery was built in the 1880s to house the paintings of Marianne North, an MP's daughter who travelled alone to North and South America, South Africa and many parts of Asia to paint plants in a time when women rarely did so. The gallery has 832 of her paintings. The paintings were left to Kew by th
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Entertainment review with Jelena Adzic: Mandy's tribute to Amanda Leigh. June 5/09
The Swatting Season
The common mosquito. Actually, there is absolutely nothing common about the common mosquito. In The Swatting Season, producer Dave Redel discovers a simple animal with astounding complexity. Thursday June 11 at 9 pm on Radio One. Or listen to it now online.
