Juli | 2012 | Hilmar Schmundt

Kew Gardens. Home to 25 000 flowers from all over the world (out of a total of approximately ten times that). Home of the millennium seed bank. Home to fern specialists, cactus specialists, oak specialists (there are 250 kinds of oak trees on the lush grounds). Home to 120 000 books and 250 000 letters, mostly about plants. Crossroads of botanical globalisation for over 240 years, national botanical gardens since 1840. They attract over one million visitors per year. Nearly half a million airplanes land at nearby Heathrow airport each year, 17 miles to the west. That makes half a plane per visitor. Zoom. They fly in low, one every minute or so. People start to syncopate their conversations according to the jets‘ schedules. Globalisation goes on – as below, so above. That makes it the perfect place for couples that include at least one garden lover and one plane spotter. They can sit there, next to a fern, a palmtree, an oak, one looking up, one looking down, falling silent once a minute when another jet comes in low.