A host of golden daffodils - at Kew Gardens

A host of golden daffodils - Broad Walk, Kew Gardens (12 March 2012)
pen and sepia ink and coloured pencils in Moleskine Sketchbook, 11" x 16"
copyright Katherine Tyrrell - all rights reserved

I started to post sketches from last week and realised I'd forgotten to post this sketch from one of our trips to Kew Gardens in the middle of March.

I guess the daffodils will be coming to an end now - but the Broad Walk at Kew Gardens is an amazing sight when they are all in full bloom.  They seem to have batches staged so they start at different times.

I sketched the Broad Walk from the end of the terrace outside the Orangery while sat having a cup of tea.  It's very difficult working out how best to sketch daffodils planted like this.  Too fussy and it looks completely unreal. In the end I decided to go for large abstracted shapes of colour and then to cut in some negative shapes with darker greens

Also the title is slightly facetious.  Has anybody ever noticed the variation in the colour of daffodils and how so very often. although we might think of them all as buttery yellow, some of them actually seem to be leaning towards a lime green tinge to the yellow while others are heading towards white in colour.

This is the view from the Broad Walk from the lake end.  You can just see the Orangery - the white building - at the other end where I was sitting to sketch.

Daffodils along the Broad Walk, Kew Gardens
photo copyright Katherine Tyrrell - all rights reserved

The Broad Walk, Kew Gardens

The Broad Walk was laid out by Decimus Burton in 1845-1846 as part of his entrance design for the new Royal Botanic Gardens.

The Broad Walk at Kew Gardens runs from the lake next to the Palm House to the Eastern end of the Orangery and the lawn outside Kew Palace.  It's a major axis within the overall design of the layout of Kew Gardens.

In the Spring the Broad Walk plays host to the Daffodil Walk. The following os an extract from the Kew Gardens website - and includes two podcasts talking about the daffodils

In the autumn of 2000, 70,000 daffodil bulbs were planted on either side of the Broad Walk.

• Talking Kew with Annette Dalton - The Broad Walk
• Storyteller Tony Bonning: The girl Echo and the boy Narcissus

Kew Gardens - Spring Bulbs - Daffodil Walk

You can find out more about the other Spring Bulb displays at Kew Gardens via the following links

Spring bulbs

• Cherry Walk
• Holly Walk
• Princess Walk
• Glory of the Snow
• Daffodil Walk
• Crocus Carpet
• Hippeastrum
• Bluebells
• Bulb Planting

PS  According to the Kew Gardens website, Bluebells have already started flowering, beating all previously recorded opening dates at Kew Gardens.  They started flowering on 29 March. This is presumably due to the very warm March we have just had - the third warmest since records began!  The Bluebell walk is in the south west section of the garden - near the River Thames - just past this view The Thames at Kew - looking towards Richmond 12 and 15 March 2012

Links:

• More posts about sketching at Kew Gardens
• Kew Gardens - a Great Garden