The Isabella Plantation is an enchanting ornamental woodland in Richmond Park.

Laura Nolte shared this beautiful photo of the flowers in blume with the Visit London Flickr group. Don’t forget to add your photos of London looking pretty to the group.

Pete Riches has entered our Only in London Flickr Photo competition with this lovely photo of Canada Geese grazing on the banks of the Thames.

Add your photos to the Visit London Flickr Pool with the tag onlyinlondon2010 and you could win top price tickets to Jersey Boys and a night at the Thistle Marble Arch Hotel.

What a cutie! This parakeet posing attractively in some spring cherry blossom was spotted by Doug McMasters.

If you’re wondering about London’s wild tropical birds, there’s some parakeet info on the BBC website.

Don’t forget to add your photos to the Visit London Flickr pool.

Last Friday’s talk celebrated the 250th anniversary of the Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew. The theme was the inspiration of nature.

The speakers were designer Celia Birtwell, naturalist Richard Mabey, journalist Anna Pavord and David Mabberley, the keeper of Kew’s Herbarium. (When there are portraits of Michelangelo, Holbein and Inigo Jones watching from the walls of the lecture theatre, you need an impressive line up like this!)

Acclaimed designer Celia Birtwell was top of the bill. Celebrated for her hand-drawn floral print fabric, Celia revealed she created one of her famous prints while sketching at the V&A. Celia talked us through many of her famous designs, sharing the inspiration behind each piece.

(If you’re wishing you had a designer budget to buy Celia’s work, she’s recently designed a purse-friendly new cover for Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights!)

Richard Mabey spoke about the devastation caused by the big storm of 1987. Kew lost many rare trees, but unexpectedly the damage wasn’t all bad, as it gave the scientists access to the roots and their underground world for the first time.

Anna Pavord described the wild landscapes of Kazakhstan, Scotland and Cumbria. Anna’s eloquent thoughts about nature provided an enjoyable take on the way the natural world can inspire the written word.

The Herbarium at Kew contains more than 7 million plant specimens and many paintings of plants. The drawings are stored by species so you’ll find all the cabbage paintings together. David Mabberley spoke about the illustration side of the collection and the way it inspires Kew’s conservation work.

Did you know that the illustration of plants dates back to antiquity? That repeatedly drawing a plant from previous drawings over centuries creates a sort of Chinese whispers effect of changing and simplifying the information? David also told the audience a story about a drawing of a mythical Barnacle Goose Tree from the 1500s which convinced a few people that geese grow on trees.

All that in just over an hour! You can book a ticket to a Friday night talk for £8 (£6 concessions) and it’s worth every penny. At the end, there’s usually a chance for you to ask questions and get books signed.

Find out what’s coming up at the V&A’s Friday Talks here. Your favourite designers might be up next!

What do you like to do in London when the weather heats up? Ice creams in the park? Catching a breeze on the river? Tell us your top tips for summer in London!

This year, for its summer exhibition Radical Nature: Art and Architecture for a Changing Planet 1969 – 2009, the Barbican has cast its net wide in every sense of the word. The main action takes place in the Barbican Gallery with offsite installations on the Barbican’s Lakeside Terrace and in Dalston.

We liked Radical Nature, not just for its exhibits but for its earthy smells, surprises, apocalyptic sense of humour and space.

It’s all about the way, in recent years, nature and the environment has inspired artists and architects. The exhibition looks at the way these modern artists engage with the environment as they attempt to create some kind of harmony between man and planet.

Using both levels of the Barbican’s gallery space, the exhibition features 25 artists and architects. Described by the curator as “Frankenstein’s garden”, Radical Nature kicks off with a sad and eerie looking lone pine wolf on a trailer. One of Mark Dion’s Mobile Wilderness Units – the wolf demonstrates how man continually tries to turn nature into a palatable commodity.

Particular highlights for me included Anya Gallaccio’s Birch Tree. To create the installation the artist worked with a tree surgeon to source a tree which was destined to be felled. Once cut down, the tree was reassembled in the gallery space using metal bolts and wires. It’s very gentle and yet it screams “I shouldn’t be in here!”

Great stuff for children includes Henrick Hakansson’s Fallen Forest. It’s a tropical jungle flipped on its side and you can explore behind, around and above it. Green Room, 2009 is a simple wooden structure that you walk into. Once inside, a beautiful miniature garden is revealed and the mirrored interior walls create an illusion of infinite space, when in fact only once person can comfortably fit inside the structure.

Radical Nature is good stuff – serious, surprising and fun. The exhibition is on until 18 October. If you see it, let us know what you think.

Photograph by Lyndon Douglas, courtesy of the Barbican.