The Palm House, Kew Gardens
In the early 1970’s a haunting science fiction film “Silent Running” was produced, depicting a world in which all natural flora had been extirpated by nuclear holocaust. The only remaining flora existed under glass, in modules orbiting above the earth. Virtually no living person had ever known the joy of walking beneath a canopy of leaves. No one had ever walked on grass barefoot. It was a rare privilege for one to walk in an oasis of green, being only possible for those that could afford a ride into space. Alas, the orbital transport service company responsible for the maintenance of the modules decided on other priorities and these islands of emerald were cast off into the darkness of interstellar space to die. Fortunately, it was but a work of fiction.
In the mid-to-late nineteenth century a powerful aesthetic of beauty emerged in the Victorian world, forever gifting the world with sublime music, art, architecture, and expansive places of public gathering. We ended up with the transcendent music of Ralph Vaughn Williams and the captivating visual images of Claude Monet from this inspired era. Perhaps the most compelling structures erected at the time were the great white iron and glass conservatories built as centerpieces of botanical gardens to showcase fabulous collections of plants and trees from around the globe.
Today I left the frenzy that is inevitable when twelve and a half million people live in a smallish space and hopped on a crowded train for an hour. I noticed that virtually everyone in the train was implanted with a phone and a frown. None seemed happy to be alive on a fine cerulean day of early autumn.
Alighting and walking half a mile through a quiet and pleasing neighborhood where the first fringes of autumn crispness were in the air, I soon passed through Victorian Gates into an oasis that put the modules of “Silent Running” to shame. In the context of “Silent Running”, it seems appropriate that I should now find myself in the largest surviving Victorian conservatories in the world. During the past century, other priorities resulted in the loss of most of these glorious structures. The far-sighted custodians of Kew Gardens have maintained and enlarged its botanical collections for two-hundred fifty years and a glorious preservation and conservation effort by visionary managers and volunteers has provided for us the spectacular crystal jewels I now find myself in.
Richard Turner in 1844-1848 built this particular imposing structure to the design of Decimus Burton, inspired by the shape of a ship. This grand edifice is indeed a ship, an ark. Unlike those of “Silent Running”, this one has not been cast off into space to freeze. An army of volunteers and staff take care of the structure and the legions of tropical plants tucked away beneath thousands of panes of glass. There is a potted plant here from East Cape in South Africa. It made a two-year ocean voyage in 1773. More than two centuries later this plant is alive and well in its very large pot. This plant has been running silently for two hundred and thirty six years with good care and attention. It is reported to be the oldest known potted plant in the world.
There is a thin consistent golden sunlight flooding the crystalline vaults above, the kind photographers pray for. I walk around softly in visual nirvana, collecting living images of the emerald realm, under glass. The white lattice of the ironwork weaves an entrancing pattern beneath the cerulean sky. I consider my great fortune to have been gifted with the opportunity to come across six time zones to such a place and find the patterns in my own life that give entrancing evidence the universe is really a friendly place after all.
I wander around the gallery catwalks, almost feeling the transpiration of all these vibrant tropical plants and trees below me. The tree ferns are huge and lush beyond words. Life feels strong and vital in here. Plants are not the only things fairing well under glass. A wavelet of serenity is washing over me and I am feeling a calmness and contentment that most people would give anything for. I am getting it for the price of admission, and even that was given to me by a friend who thought I needed to be here in this oasis, under glass.
I am suddenly back in another conservatory many thousands of miles away, one where I found daily refuge as I struggled back to life again after a long dark night of the soul, now twenty years distant. In that glass house at Birmingham I learned, as did Francis Bacon, "God almighty first planted a garden. And indeed, it is the purest of human pleasures."
There is a prominent sign in the nearby entrance of the Palm House that asks, “What Does Kew Do?” The expected answer is something to the effect of, ‘collecting, nurturing, propagating, and archiving the botanical heritage of our world.’ I would suggest a mission statement should include providing a place where one goes and then doesn’t want to be anywhere else. I wonder if all those passengers in the train might have found a reason to smile if they were to have come here, turned off their phones, and put themselves under glass. How grand to feel rooted, if not for 236 years, then a few hours at least. As Dorothy Frances Gurney put it, "Kiss of the sun for pardon. Song of the birds for mirth. You're closer to God's heart in a garden than any place else on earth."
Turn off the phone, find a garden, and find God.
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