Visit to Kew

Stunning clear photos Hywel will love those Cactus and I love that water lily and the orchid stunning thank you for sharing

great photos, the one of the water lily is beautiful

Its fabulous isn`t it, I loved the tree walk but daughter and grandson were scared..
Shame about your camera but the photo`s you do have are lovely, I know about tired feet but when visiting Kew you try and see as much as possible,not until you sit down that you realise how achey ones pins are...
Pleased you enjoyed it...

Sixpence, the photos look better on here than they did at home! Didn't know Hywel is a cactus fan. Yes the orchid was amazing.
The waterlily is great isn't it - pity they don't grow outside here! I'm a sucker for blue flowers.
Well Lincslass, I was scared too, but refused to give in to it!

Lovely pics and blog Sue. Glad you had a fab time. :o))

Thanks Lindalooloo. My feet have just about stopped being sore now!

:o))

Thanks for telling me about this. I miss a lot of things on here. I love cacti. Some of these are fantastic :)

Glad you saw them then. I used to be mad keen when I was younger I was even a member of the Nat. Cactus and Succulent Soc. Of GB and once won a prize in the beginners class for a pan of seedlings.(Wow, big deal, but it was then) I still have the prize card! I'm down to a few Christmas cacti and a succulent or two now though.

I've been collecting them since I was a teenager. I think i always will :)
Sad you don't have them any more.

I remember when I was in school, (quite young), we used to make minature gardens. We'd get an old tray that had built up sides and fill it with earth, use an old mirror as a pond and then put gravel or sand and a few seashells, or whatever we had to hand, and then plant a few minature cacti and succulents to make it look like a garden. Tallish ones for trees, and then the little rosette ones as bushes or flowers. Get a few lollypop sticks to make fences and a gate, and maybe paint a couple of small pebbles. I use to love making them, and they were quite effective when they were finished.

Hywel, I rather lost it when I left home and had to leave them for my longsuffering mother to care for - lodgings in general don't welcome plant collections! But I still have a descendant of my original Christmas cactus - before all today's lovely varieties were in existence.

Linda L L - sounds lovely. Did you ever read the Milly Molly Mandy stories when you were little? She once made a little garden like that for a competition at the village institute - it had a mirror pond, but no cacti - I think few people had even seen a cactus in those days, hard though that is to imagine now!

That's good then :) I don't think the modern varieties are as nice as the original one. They are stiffer and the flowers don't last as long.

Don't you think so? I have one called Red July flowering now and it lasts well, and another that flowered for ages in the winter - but it was in a pretty cold conservatory which helps a lot.

I think they look stiff :( and the flowers seem to poke out instead of hanging down. No I don't like the modern ones as much as the old variety.