Kew Gardens in April: Spring Delights

During my year's membership of Kew Gardens I didn't manage to visit as often as I'd planned - deadlines got in the way and, of course, there was lots of other fun stuff in London to tempt me on my days off.

I was particularly annoyed with myself for missing the famous bluebells and the cherry blossom walk in full bloom in late spring, but it's hard to be sad looking back as my early April visit was so full of spring delights.

As well as the magnificent magnolias which I blogged about earlier (because, honestly, they really deserved their own post), on my April walk around the gardens I spotted...

... seas of daffodils...

 

... beautiful blossom...

... yellow flames of forsythia...

... and early budding lilac.

It was such a perfect sunny spring day! The weather at this time of year can be so changeable, you have to grab sunny days when you get them and squeeze as much into them as you possibly can.

It was wonderful to be able to spend ages walking round the gardens, seeing familiar vistas full of the light and colour and vibrancy of the season and discovering new-to-me corners.

The gardens at Kew are so large that it feels like there are always new things to discover - at least it did during my year of visits! One of the new places I explored during my April visit was the bonsai house which, just like its contents, is small but perfectly formed.

I also popped into the Marianne North Gallery, which might not look that exciting from the outside but is an incredibly unique space - click to see!

Marianne North was a Victorian botanical artist, who travelled the world painting fabulously vivid pictures of tropical and exotic plants. The gallery at Kew was purpose-built to house her life's work, and it's wonderful but also slightly overwhelming seeing it all at once. You can browse the complete collection of Marianne's paintings online here, and read more about her life here.

For more Kew Gardens goodness, click here to read all my posts about my visits.