kew gardens | Anita Mathias: Dreaming Beneath the Spires

Roy and I have been to Kew Gardens every week this spring. I am learning to run, and it’s a lovely place to jog, through the azalea and camellia and rhododendron, and fields of bluebells and crocus and fritillary. Our walks are usually 4 miles, but you just don’t realize how far you have done in this constantly changing panorama. Heaven, I believe, will have a little area reserved for Kew Gardens.

The rest of this blog and the images are from Roy.

Kew Gardens is a wonderful place to visit on good day. (Even on a rainy day, there are the glass houses.) Here are few pictures from several visits this spring.

Snake’s head fritillary, Kew Gardens.

Some of the 30,000 fritillaries planted at Kew.

The square patches of color looking like scales and shape give the flower its name.

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The Lucombe Oak, created by William Lucombe, is a cross between the Turkey Oak and the Cork Oak. It is a very vigorous cultivar and so highly prized. This tree was planted 20 meters away in 1773, then at the age of 73, it was transplanted to its present location. (One of Kew’s botanical listed attractions.)

A huge chestnut.

One of the hundreds of naturalised crocuses at Kew.

Scilla (or are they Chionodoxa?)

Temple of Aeolus on top of a daffodil covered hill in the Woodland Garden, Kew Gardens.

Kew has a number of ponds and grassy areas that are welcoming to a variety of birds.

Kew has ponds and grassy areas that are welcoming to birds.

Cornelia Cherry (Cornus Mas)

Canada goose — usually seen on land.

A gathering of waterbirds. (The lady feeding them is off to the left.)

The wooded areas of Kew have some wonderful wild flowers and naturalised bulbs.

A massive drift of crocuses. (Kew Gardens)

A mix of blue flowers and Queen Anne’s lace growing under a variety of species of oak.

Queen Anne’s lace under a golden oak.

The azalea and rhododendron walk has some huge rhododendrons completely covered in flower, as well as smaller specimens where you can appreciate the individual flowers.

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We weren’t the only ones going out for a walk in the lovely spring weather. 07-DSCN7627 08-DSCN7630

1 We are taking a walking course in London, with Joanna Hall of The Walking Diet.

With her walking technique, I am walking faster—much faster—and, more importantly, really, really enjoying it. I am walking about 4 miles a day around London, when I am there, and Oxford.

2 Leighton House

Frederick, Lord Leighton was a Pre-Raphaelite artist who was immensely rich privileged and never needed to work for his living. Unlike othesr born to his happy state of affairs, however, he did make something of his life.

When he declared his intention of becoming an artist, his parents opposed it, unless he became a preeminent artist. And so he assured them he would become one of the preeminent artists of his generation. And he did—becoming the President of the Royal Academy.

Leighton, who was probably gay, never married. His gorgeous house is dedicated to beauty. There are beautiful Moorish rooms much like the Alhambra and the Topkapi Palace in Istanbul, all tiles, and gold mosaics and fountains. The light-flooded enormous studio is to die for!

And, in line with the aesthetic movement, beauty for beauty’s sake, he has a mishmash of lovely things from throughout the world in every room—peacock fans, Japanese vases, inlaid ivory Ottoman chests!! There is even a Narcissus room, after the Narcissus room in the just-discovered Pompeii. His bedroom, oddly, is a near-monastic cell amid all this magnificence.

High stained glass window in the Arab Hall, Leighton House.

Dome, the Arab Hall, Leighton House.

Tile panel, the Arab Hall, Leighton House.

3 Britain’s glory is her gardens. The ponds with wild ducks, the spring bulbs, soft birdsong—oh, exploring them in early spring mid-week with all the retirees is an otherworldly, almost mystical experience.

Here are some images from Kew Gardens

Huge Chestnut, Kew Gardens.

A variety of water birds (Kew).

A drift of Crocus, Kew.

Squirrels are everywhere in London parks.

and the Oxford Botanic Garden

Crocus under a mossy tree, Oxford Botanical garden.

Crocus under a mossy tree, Oxford Botanic Garden.

Tulips planted at the base of a tree, Oxford Botanical Garden.

Tulips planted at the base of a tree, Oxford Botanic Garden.

Banana flower, greenhouse, Oxford Botanical Garden.

Banana flower, greenhouse, Oxford Botanic Garden.

Moored punts, filled with rain water, by Magdalen Bridge, Oxford Botanical Garden.

Moored punts, filled with rain water, by Magdalen Bridge, Oxford Botanic Garden.

A view from Christchurch Meadow.

4 And Wisley Garden in Surrey

Garden sculpture, Wisley. (iphone)

A colorful crocus drift, Wisley. (iphone)

With, equally colorful ducks. (iphone)

Miniature narcissus gazing into the water, Wisley. (iphone)

5 We walked yesterday through a flooded University Parks in Oxford. What a strange half-watery, other-worldly place it was—familiar fields under water, the river and ponds having burst their banks, the meadows now the habitation of swans, ducks, coots and glebes. There were very few people around, and it felt like a thin place, other worlds very present.

Flooded fields by University Parks. (iphone pic)

The small duck pond has been engulfed by the flooding river (University Parks, Feb, 2013, iphone)

Hopkins felt that about Oxford

Towery city and branchy between towers;
Cuckoo-echoing, bell-swarmèd, lark-charmèd, rook-racked, river-rounded;

Yet ah! this air I gather and I release
He lived on; these weeds and waters, these walls are what
He haunted who of all men most sways my spirits to peace;

He wrote that of Duns Scotus. I feel like that about him.

6 My daughters

Irene, 13, now has a blog, Life Among the Cupcakes. I begged her to have a blog about books, since she reads a lot and writes like an angel, but she sagely explained that she must be herself, and not me, and her passion is baking!! Humph!

Other Irene quotes—I think everyone should be a Buddhist. Even if they are a Christian.

Irene stayed home one day to work at our family business (a publishing company). It was a “take your daughter to work day,” but we work from home. And the phone kept ringing. The doorbell kept ringing. She was disgruntled and disgusted. “People don’t realize how important I am. They don’t realize I have stayed home from school just to work!” Work said with utter contempt compared with the sublimity of school, which she loves!

Zoe is doing a lot of talks at her school’s Christian Union which she runs, and at the Pathfinders (10-14) group at Church. She has been voted as “Most Likely to be the First Female Archbishop of Canterbury” for her school’s yearbook. Studying theology at Jesus College, Cambridge, however, is a more immediate item on her agenda.

7 New Year’s Resolutions

I now wish I had followed Zen Habits sage advice, and made just one resolution a month. Next year.

However, here is my progress on my resolutions.

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