Most of us don’t venture out into the garden at night. Its too dark, too cold and not much to see. Taking a tour around a large botanical garden, lit with over 60,000 lights of all colours, shapes and sizes is a completely different experience and well worth the effort to venture out on a winter’s evening.
There’s the opportunity for fresh air and exercise, but most of all it’s your senses that will be astounded and amazed. The walk around the gardens is visually beautiful and its lovely to see the lights, changing colours and shades in time to the music. The experience ticks all the boxes of why one would want to visit the garden, day or night.
The Fire Garden (yes it is real fire) depicts the first 5 days of Christmas from the song the 12 days of Christmas. As you walk by you can hear everyone humming the song trying to work out what the installations are.
At every point of the walk you will want to stop, look, listen, absorb and enjoy. We spent ages in the light tunnel, my 11 year olds favourite installation. Light, sound, movement and psychedelic colour all combine to create a wow experience.
We visit Kew Gardens regularly so it was interesting to see some favourite venues and trees from a different perspective. The Bee Hive looked stunning. This is a unique structure, inspired by scientific research into the health of bees. Designed by UK based artist Wolfgang Buttress, it was originally created as the centrepiece of the UK Pavilion at the 2015 Milan Expo. The installation is made from thousands of pieces of aluminium which create a lattice effect and is fitted with hundreds of LED lights that glow and fade as a unique soundtrack hums and buzzes around you.
In the night the Hive looked like a structure from out of space, superb both from outside and when you look up from the inside the centre. This had to be my favourite sight of the evening.
The grand finale of the walk was a light and music show using the lake and the Palm House as a backdrop to their full effect.
So if you have the opportunity to go to Kew Gardens at night or to any other garden lit up this time of year close to you please do go. Expect it to be busy – it’s not a restful experience. If you. like us know Kew Gardens wel,l but have never visited at night you won’t be disappointed. If it’s your first visit to Kew then take time to visit again during the day.
It’s a magical outdoor experience for all ages. In my view the feeling of well being the visit engenders is well worth the quite pricey tickets.
One last recommendation – the marshmallows!
We are linking up this post to Country kids at Coombe Mill. Take a look there to see what others have been up to this week
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