There are an estimated 28,000 different species of orchid in the world.
Which, for a little context, is four times the number of mammal species.
And while you won’t see quite all of them at Kew Gardens’ new floral festival, they’ve done a pretty good job of amassing as many as possible to create a breathtaking miniature rainforest in their Princess of Wales Conservatory.
Each year the festival brings a beautiful part of the world to the conservatory with Costa Rica and Indonesia recently getting the opportunity to strut their stuff, and for 2024 it’s Madagascar’s turn to show off its incredible natural landscape. The West African island has quite the range of flora at its disposal: it’s unique geography has led to it having some of the planet’s rarest plant species, with over 14,000 of its plants found nowhere else in the world.
They’ll be once again arranging for some impressive installations, including giraffe weevils and ring-tailed lemurs, woven from eye-catching floral arrangements and sculptures.
And as usual, they’ll also be putting on a series of Lates, featuring an upbeat & exuberant Malagasy band called the Boriza Brothers, as well as cocktails and some Malagasy food & cooking demos to boot, while the space gets bathed in the glow of mood lighting.
It sheds a whole new light on the display…
NOTE: Orchids at Kew runs from 3rd February – 3rd March. Tickets are included with entry to the gardens, which is £20, while tickets to the After Hours events are £17. You can find out more, and book, HERE.
Orchids | Kew Gardens, TW9 3AE
Love nature? Then you might also enjoy a walk around one of the best parks in London…