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Kew Royal Botanic Gardens – Succulents

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By Mavis Butterfield on March 5, 2013 · 2 Comments

In order to get to the gorgeous orchid display at the Kew Royal Botanic Gardens we had to walk past an enormous collection of succulents. I thought I would share a few of those photos with you this afternoon because the plants were so amazing.

I don’t know what these plants are called, but they were my favorite.

Pretty awesome if you ask me. Sadly, I don’t think an outdoor cactus garden would thrive here in the Pacific Northwest but they sure are fun to look at when we visit botanical museums.

Are you able to grow these types of plants where you are? Any advise for the rest of us who would like to grow a few but don’t live in the ideal climate?

~Mavis

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Kew Royal Botanical Gardens – Inside the Palm House {Greenhouse}

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By Mavis Butterfield on February 28, 2013 · 8 Comments

I thought I would share a few more pictures from our visit to Kew Gardens today. These pictures were taken inside the Palm House, which is basically the largest glass greenhouse I have ever laid eyes on. I cannot even imagine how many people it would take to keep this greenhouse up and running.

This is a picture of just one of the many walkways. It totally felt like we were walking in a jungle. There were banana trees, but no monkeys.

Every type of palm tree imaginable was there.

Although there were about 10 million shades of green, only a few flowers were in bloom. But the textures, holy cow these plants had some amazing textures.

Ever wonder where the oldest pot plant in the world is being held?

Apparently at the Kew. I think the meant potted plant. Don’t you?

I almost fell over when I saw this.

Can you believe it is a macadamia nut cluster? Eeeeeeek!

Walking trees?

I bet Tommy Bahama totally got his ideas here.

Potted plants galore.

Check out this antique spiral staircase. It’s the only way to the top. You would never be able to use a staircase like this one here in the US. Why? Because it’s too steep and a small child could fall through the cracks. They would have to hire 10 people just to allow one person to go up the staircase at a time. Which is one thing I absolutely LOVE about traveling in Europe. They seriously expect you to use your common sense.

Here is a small view from above.

Greenhouse misters in action.

Isn’t it amazing? I wonder if he HH would let me install one in the backyard?

A Girl can dream, right?

~Mavis

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Trash Collection in London

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By Mavis Butterfield on February 26, 2013 · 21 Comments

Normally I like to start every Tuesday with pictures of the reclaimed food I was able to pick up from Mr. Produce Guy over the previous week. However this week we were out of town on our usual pick up day {we let Mr. Produce Guy we’d be gone ahead of time}. No pick up, means no free produce, for us or our chickens. So today I thought I would talk about something else instead. Trash.

Back in 2006 when our {whole} family took our first trip to London we noticed that every night as shops closed their doors they would set their trash on the street in front of their shops.

Here in America everything goes into dumpsters or trash cans, so we thought it was both rather odd {and charming at the same time}. Charming? Garbage can be charming?

Well sort of.

If you look closely at the bags in some of the pictures are marked for recycling. Which made me wonder, do Londoner’s BUY specific bags to toss their trash? Does the city give them the bags?

How much does trash collection cost in the UK vs the States?

Clearly this picture of trash was taken outside of a small hotel because it’s filled with shopping bags. Either that or it was payday and the owners of the trash went on a major shopping spree.

Is it weird that I found this fascinating enough to take pictures?

Am I off my rocker?

Did some well dressed man give me a strange look when he opened the door to his home and found some strange American taking a picture of his recyclables?

Um… YES! I actually thought The Girl was going to faint.

I thought it was hilarious, The Girl found it mortifying, and the man just closed his door on me. Whatever. One man’s trash, is another man treasure, and I had to make sure he wasn’t throwing out any treasures.

Thank you people of London for making my day. Even if all you did was throw out your trash.

~Mavis

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Kew Royal Botanic Gardens – Orchids

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By Mavis Butterfield on February 25, 2013 · 3 Comments

The Girl and I took over 600 pictures at Kew Royal Botanic Gardens during our visit. There was so much to take in that it was really overwhelming when we walked though the doors of each of the indoor gardens.

So to break up the pictures, my first post will be about the incredibly gorgeous orchid display which is currently being held in the Princess of Wales Conservatory.

In a nutshell, I want to pack the worlds largest picnic lunch and move in to the place for at least a month so I can examine every.single.flower.

There must have been over 1,000 different shades of green in the conservatory alone. And I’m from Seattle, so you’d think I would have had my fill of green by now. But no, this place, was magical.

I probably would not have even known about these gardens if it had not been for the Telegraph article a few weeks ago. I was hoping to run into the girl with auburn hair, but no such luck.

The pictures were simply stunning and once I knew we were going to London for the weekend, we put a visit to Kew Botanic Gardens at the top of our list.

Look at this archway of orchids. What a perfect backdrop for a wedding.

This one is not to shabby either.

So much color, so little time.

Last month when I was in Denver the Denver Botanic Gardens had orchids on display as well. So I’m guessing maybe this is the time of year orchids are on display at botanic gardens all over the world. So if you have a botanic garden nearby, please, please, please take a day and go for a visit. You won’t regret it.

Peace Out Girl Scouts,

Have a beautiful Monday,

♥ Mavis

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