Kew Gardens is a short story written by Virginia Woolf and originally published in 1919. The story describes four pairs of people-a married couple, an elderly man with a young man, two elderly women, and a young couple-as they pass a flower bed in a botanical garden in London. Each couple's story is shown only in fragmentary moments, which give the reader only a sense of their relationships without offering any depth of detail. The story uses the imagery of falling petals and butterflies to suggest the randomness inherent in the decisions that shape human lives. The setting, the writing style, and even some of the specific imagery used (like waterlilies) are meant to evoke the impressionist aesthetic. The story was originally published as a 24-page pamphlet by Virginia Woolf and her husband Leonard. It was the first commercial success for their publishing company, Hogarth Press.