November 2006 © Janet Davis

It’s always a pleasure to visit a botanical garden in autumn. The summer crowds are long gone. The weather is cool and conducive to a long, leisurely stroll through the grounds. Fall-flowering perennials put on a spectacular show without the gaudy competition of the annuals, whose beds have now been dug up and planted with spring bulbs. And best of all, many of the trees and shrubs wear glorious hues of bronze, apricot, gold and scarlet, often dangled with clusters of orange, blue and red fruit as well.

So it was that I spent an entire day in late October at the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, just outside London. An easy tube ride from central Sloane Square, the train deposits visitors in the charming village of Kew and just a short walk down quiet, tree-lined residential streets from the garden’s gates.

Stretching over 300 acres, some of it along the Thames River, there is much to see at this world-class garden – certainly more than can be accomplished in one fall day. But I gave it a good try.

Fiery Autumn Colour & Berries

Fall foliage colour is always variable, depending on the summer sunshine quotient, rainfall and onset of cool autumnal temperatures. Coming from a part of the world where fiery fall colour is just part of the seasonal package, I wasn’t prepared to be wowed by foliage changes in an English garden, even one as comprehensively planted as Kew. But I was pleasantly surprised by several spectacular foliage displays. Among the best were Sargent’s cherry (Prunus sargentii), the Somei-Yoshino cherry trees (Prunus x yedoensis) in the impressive Cherry Walk , Cornus ‘Ormonde’ and several North American natives including the sweet gum tree (Liquidambar styraciflua), the Northern pin oak (Quercus ellipsoides) and the gorgeous cutleaf staghorn sumac (Rhus typhina ‘Laciniata’).

I also enjoyed the colourful berries on many of the plants, in particular the violet-purple fruit of Beautyberry (Callicarpa bodiniera var. geraldii), cotoneasters, escallonias, rowans (or what North Americans call mountain ash trees), unusual hawthorns like the diminutive Crataegus microphylla, and trees that were completely new to me, including the beautiful Korean evodia (tetradium daniellii) with its mottled red-and-gold leaves and clusters of small fruit.

Sages for Fall Flowers

The flowering sages are some of the most beautiful and enduring perennials for autumn, and Kew boasted a stellar display in their Salvia Border, against the wall outside the Order Beds. They ranged from small plants like ‘Marble Arch Blue’ painted sage (Salvia viridis), Van Houtte scarlet sage (Salvia splendens ‘Van Houttei’) and autumn sage (Salvia greggii) to rangy, mid-sized ones such as Mexican bush sage (Salvia leucantha) to tall, imposing cultivars of blue anise sage (Salvia guaranitica) such as ‘Blue Ensign’ and ‘Black and Blue’. The raspberry-pink flowers of ‘Bethellii’ rose leaf sage (Salvia involucrata) and the sky-blue blossoms of bog sage (Salvia uliginosa) paired nicely with airy, purple Verbena bonariensis. Salvia confertiflora, Salvia mellifera and Salvia macellaria were three new species for me. Although most of these sages can be grown only as annuals where I live in Ontario and in colder parts of North America, they are spectacular, hard-working sub-shrubs in milder climes.

The Rock Garden & Davies Alpine House

Next, I wandered through Kew’s renowned Rock Garden, where several plants were still going strong, including a small autumn-blooming allium with magenta-pink flower umbels called Japanese onion (Allium thunbergii); the lovely South African native Moraea reticulata with its yellow, iris-like flowers; a creeping persicaria (P. capitata) known as pink bubbles for its masses of small, globe-shaped, pink flowers; and an unusual, yellow-flowered legume from the Mediterranean called horseshoe vetch (Hippocrepis balearica) that sprawled neatly across the rocks.

In the brand-new Davies Alpine House at the north end of the Rock Garden, two lilac-flowered fall crocuses from Southern Greece, Crocus tournfourtii and Crocus laevigatus, were in bloom, along with an elegant little Algerian cyclamen (Cyclamen africanum). And though its pearl-like buds were still tightly closed, it was possible to enjoy the delightfully architectural form of a squill from the Atlantic Ocean island of Madeira, Scilla madeirensis.

Gorgeous Grasses

Then it was on to what might be Kew’s crowning glory in autumn, the Grass Garden. Designed in 1982 and boasting some 550 species, the garden features large beds of ornamental grasses, forage crops, cereal grains and sugar cane.

It was a pleasure to see so many ornamental grasses in flower, especially the myriad cultivars of Chinese maiden grass (Miscanthus sinensis) from small (‘Yakushima Dwarf’) to tall (‘Sirene’) to brightly-striped (‘Strictus’). Also well-represented were switch grass (Panicum virgatum) cultivars, moor grass (Molinia), feather reed grass (Calamagrostis spp.) and others. There were also many native European annual grasses and an interesting circle laid out with common types of turfgrass, all clearly labelled.

Sated with grasses but hungry for lunch, I made a quick trip to the beautiful Orangery for a bowl of autumnal pumpkin soup, then headed over to the newly-opened Kew Palace.

Kew Palace – A Treasure Reopens

After being closed for a decade for a ₤6.6 million restoration by Historic Royal Palaces, the charming, gabled, orange-brick mansion opened its doors to the public again in spring 2006. Built in 1631 by a wealthy Flemish merchant, it was known as Dutch House when the English royal family bought it in 1728 as a residence for the daughters of King George II and Queen Caroline.

With another residence, the White House, located nearby, Kew Palace served as a schoolhouse for various royal children. During the late 1750s, it was Princess Augusta, the Duchess of Wales and widow of one of the royal sons, the Duke of Wales Prince Frederick, who founded the beautiful gardens on the estate. In 1760, Frederick and Augusta’s son King George III acquired the palace for his wife Queen Charlotte; again, it served as a school for someof their fifteen children and was the site of King George IV’s birth. In 1801, it became a sanitarium for George III during one of the frequent episodes of dementia (now known to have been caused by the blood disease porphyria) that inspired the 1994 film The Madness of King George, starring Nigel Hawthorne and Helen Mirren. In 1818, Kew Palace hosted the summer wedding of Queen Victoria’s father, the Duke of Kent and his brother, who would later become King William IV . That November, Queen Charlotte died at Kew and the palace was closed, eventually slipping into disuse and disrepair. It was opened to the public by Queen Victoria in 1899 and would remain open for almost a century.

Although the formal Queen’s Garden with its boxwood parterre, yew hedges and sunken nosegay garden seems as old and venerable as the castle it surrounds, it is a relatively recent introduction. It was designed and constructed in the 1960s by the Director of the Gardens at the time, Sir George Taylor.

The Queen’s Garden may be visited free of charge, there is a separate admission fee and timed reservations to visit Kew Palace.

For more information on the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, visit their website.

Back to Latest From Janet