A short guide to visiting Kew Royal Botanic Gardens
Kew Gardens is one of the great botanical gardens anywhere on the planet, a World Heritage Site spread out over 326 acres of land.
It claims to be the home of the most diverse collection of plants of any botanical garden in the world, with tens of thousands of living plants and more than 7 million dried plant samples in its herbarium.
While gardens were on the site for some time before, the first botanical garden at Kew was formally established in 1759. Over the decades and centuries that followed, giant glasshouses – including the enormous, near 5,000 square metre Temperate House – were constructed to provide the ideal climates for rare and tropical plants to thrive in grey and chilly England.
Now, Kew Gardens is one of my very favourite places in London. It’s a beautiful, peaceful escape, one I strongly recommend to any travellers needing a break from the noise and crowds of the centre of London, and which you can get to in less than an hour from many parts of the city.
If you love plants, you’ll adore Kew. If you just sort of like plants but really like gentle walks and nice views, you’ll probably adore it too.
This is our short guide to visiting Kew Gardens, including our favourite attractions, our thoughts on Christmas at Kew, Cherry Blossom season, and what else to know before you visit.
Highlights of Kew Royal Botanic Gardens
You have just a few months left to see the Palm House before it closes for five years for renovations. One of the great Victorian glasshouses at Kew, it opened in 1848 but the metal structure is now starting to show its age. The plants inside, though, are just as beautiful now as they are in some of the old pictures you can see by clicking the link above.
If you’re not planning to be in London until 2027, after the Palm House is closed, the good news is that the Waterlily House is due to reopen in Spring next year following some renovations of its own. While a much smaller glasshouse than the Palm House, it was one of the loveliest parts of Kew before its temporary closure.
You will also want to spend some time in the Temperate House and the Princess of Wales Conservatory, which is home to Kew’s most famous resident: The Titan Arum, or ‘Corpse Flower’ as it’s also known. While it isn’t permanently on display, it attracts the biggest crowds of all Kew’s attractions when its flower opens and gives off a rotting stench for only two days every few years or so.
Of all the parts of Kew, the Princess of Wales Conservatory is my very favourite. The Jade Vine, or Emerald Creeper, is one of the prettiest plants in the whole collection at Kew, and the cacti and succulent sections are largely responsible for inspiring my own increasingly impractically large collection of spiky plants at home. I could happily spend hours in there.
Christmas at Kew
From mid-November to early January, you can see Kew Gardens at night time, decked in illuminations for the Christmas season.
Tickets sell out pretty early; as I’m writing this in mid-September 2026, around half of this year’s dates are fully sold out and many more have only limited numbers of tickets available.
Liz and I went to Christmas at Kew for the first time last year and, as you might expect from how many nice things I’ve had to say about Kew Gardens so far, we had a pretty good time.
While you can’t see as many of the beautiful plants as you normally would on a daytime visit, the lawns, ponds, and many of the trees in Kew’s grounds do look especially lovely bathed in light on a cold English winter night.
All that being said, I haven’t made plans to go back this year. I would recommend Christmas at Kew to tourists and Londoners alike as a fun one-off festive night out, but it didn’t quite meet the very high expectations I had before going. While some of the light displays are very lovely, other parts of the experience detract from the things I already love about Kew: the peacefulness, the ability to enjoy the plants, and the natural beauty of the grounds.
The food and drink on offer isn’t thrilling – there’s a decent variety of stalls, but you should expect quite long queues and middling quality. You should also be prepared to part with more money than you’d want to for your little cup of hot chocolate or mulled wine (but, you know, treat yourself anyway).
But if you can afford the tickets, if you don’t mind a little extra noise and a some slightly bigger crowds, and if you just want to see Kew in a different way… it’s still worth doing. I suspect most people, perhaps just wanting to have a good time rather than preferring a quieter, calmer night out, will enjoy the experience even more than I did.
If you decide to visit Christmas at Kew, you need to make sure to buy a ticket specifically for the event. A regular daytime entry ticket will not permit you to stay in the Gardens for the Christmas festivities in the evening.
Cherry blossom season at Kew
London is home to a lot of people. It’s also home to a lot of cherry trees.
I should know, as I just spent the past 25 minutes sorting through this handy spreadsheet to find exactly out how many there are. As of November 2025, there were at least 101,500 cherry trees across London – from tiny saplings to fully mature adults.
Kew is one of the places to see Sakura – cherry blossoms – in our home city. Stroll along the Cherry Walk and admire the pink and white blooms of the different varieties of Japanese cherry trees along the path towards the Temperate House. Flowering tends to take place in late March and early April, though the exact time changes from year to year.
Cherry blossom season also coincides with Magnolia blooming season, making these few short weeks some of the most colourful and spectacular to visit the Gardens. If you happen to be in London at this time of year, it’s worth the time and money you need to spend to visit.
How much time do you need to spend at Kew Gardens?
The answer to this question obviously depends somewhat on just how interested in all things botanical you are. If you love seeing all the different plants as much as Liz and I do, then set aside most of the day to see Kew.
If you’re not as interested in stopping and reading about plants, conservation work, and the history of Kew, then you could quickly see everything there is to see in two to three hours. It would feel a very rushed visit though.
A sensible plan would be to spend a couple of hours looking around the conservatories and open spaces in the morning, stop for a picnic somewhere with a nice view, then spend a couple of hours more to see anything you didn’t get to in the afternoon before you leave.
Cost and opening hours
The Gardens are open from 10am to 7pm, but all of the glasshouses close earlier at 5pm. Other attractions also close before 7pm; all the details can be found on Kew’s website.
In peak months, adult (30 years and over) tickets cost £25 if you reserve online in advance or £28 to buy at the gate. Young people (16-29 years) pay only £10 in advance or £12 at the gate. For disabled people and senior citizens (65 years and over), it’s £23 in advance or £26 at the gate. Children’s (4-15 years) tickets are only £2 if reserved in advance and £4 if bought at the gate.
In off peak months, from 1 November to 31 January, tickets are significantly cheaper. Tickets for adults, disabled people and senior citizens are £8 cheaper than in peak months, while for young people they are £3 cheaper. There is no additional discount for children.
Is Kew Gardens worth the cost of getting in?
You probably already know my answer to this. Although adult tickets are a little on the expensive side – looking after all these rare plants and helping to conserve them for future generations doesn’t come cheap – I’ve visited Kew several times and I’m sure I’ll go back again several more times in future, despite the cost.
Compared to many of the other botanical gardens we've visited elsewhere in Europe in recent years – like those in Furnas in the Azores Islands and in Menton in the South of France – Kew is much better value for money, despite those other gardens being cheaper to enter.
Even if you’re not as interested in plants as me, you’re still bound to find some things that you’ll enjoy looking at and learning about. We'd recommend it to anyone.
How to get to Kew Gardens on public transport
Kew Gardens is helpfully served by bus, train, London Underground and London Overground trains. If you’re unfamiliar with how to get around London without a car, make sure to read our comprehensive guide to public transport.
Kew Gardens station is on the District Underground and the Mildmay Overground lines. It’s then a half-kilometre walk to the Victoria Gate entrance.
If there are delays or cancellations on the Underground or Mildmay lines, you might want to take a National Rail service to Kew Bridge and walk 800m to the Elizabeth Gate entrance.
Help, I cannot visit a botanical garden on an empty stomach.
I understand and, as ever, I’m here to help.
There are several cafés and restaurants within Kew Gardens. The cafés are fine for a drink, but a bit underwhelming for food.
Café Yukari, just outside Kew Gardens station, is apparently very nice. I say apparently as I’ve never been able to find a seat there – it’s a popular spot.
When we don’t remember to pack a picnic – which, by the way, is the best way to eat on a day out at Kew – we’ll typically pick up some empanadas from De Nadas on Station Avenue to eat on a bench in the gardens. We’ll then get ourselves a coffee from one of the cafés inside Kew Gardens and feel content enough.
If you visit Kew and find somewhere you can highly recommend for coffee, lunch, or a snack, we’d love to hear your suggestions in the comments.
Anything else I should know?
While I prefer to end our guides with something I (and usually only I) find funny, I’m instead going to recommend a book where you can read about some of the darker aspects of Kew’s history. To their credit, Kew’s modern-day stewards have acknowledged this side of the Gardens' past.
While the story is far too complex for me to try to explain in a short blog, Sathnam Sanghera’s Empireworld has a chapter dedicated to Kew’s role in Britain’s colonial history. It’s a thoughtful and nuanced investigation, one which considers the good that emerged from Kew’s research and scientific advances, as well as the horrifying actions it enabled.
If you’re visiting Britain and want to know more about its history, it’s a book well worth seeking out at the airport to read on your flight home.
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