Fall in Kew

Detail of Regine Hagerdorn’s Rosiers  

This week was meant to be something of a break, but I have been working pretty much flat out, with Volans doing a major email out to our contacts around the world – which has had me respnding to hundreds of email replies.  Have also been working on a column for Director magazine, an article I’m co-authoring with Mark Lee and the WEC project.  So this morning Elaine dragged me off to Kew Gardens, to give me a bit of exercise and get some fresh air in my lungs.  And what a wonderful treat it was.

High points included (literally) the new aerial walkway and (aesthetically) the Shirley Sherwood Gallery of Botanical Art.  hadn’t thought I much liked botanical paintings, but there were many  would have gladly grabbed off the walls here and run away with.  Did buy Shirley Sherwood’s book A Passion for Plants, for its reproductions of many of the more recent paintings in the collection.  One of the ones I liked best was by Regne Hagerdorn, Rosiers.  It showed a series of different rose stems — and to my eye looked like a botanical score for some form of music that you would need some form of kinesthesia to hear.

Aerial walkway 1   Aerial walkway 2   Chestnut leaf-miner   Leaf-miners 2   Walkway surface   Temperate House   Elaine, aerially   Walkway again   Support   Elaine and metal tree   Walkway embraces   Fall leaves 1   Shirley Sherwood   Fungi   Fall leaves 2   Carved stomata   Sculptural version of a tree root