Kew Orchids (6 Feb 23)

I have been going to Kew Orchids for several years and for good reasons. I go to Kew Gardens regularly anyway because I have annual membership, it costs nothing additional to go to Kew Orchids (though a timed ticket is needed) and it is always very worth seeing.

Kew Orchids has changed a little in recent years, perhaps in response to covid-19 perhaps because of cost-cutting and perhaps a little of both, and there are now fewer orchids on display and the route through them is more regimented.

This may sound like it has become a lesser event but I would compare it to, say, Chelsea Flower Show where you have walls of flowers on display in the marque and gardens outside and Kew Orchids has moved from the large displays to embedding the orchids more into the rest of the glasshouse. I guess it is a question of preferences and I like the new approach.

Besides, it is still free so fewer orchids is still excellent value for money!

 

There are several major displays still and, as always, there is one in the pond soon after entering the glasshouse. The lion is magnificent and it is joined by some other animals in the pond.

 

The leopard is magnificent too. Animal models are a feature of Kew Orchids and they help to put the orchids into context, this year that context is Cameroon.

 

Of course there are still plenty of orchids to see and I have chosen just a couple of examples from the many photographs that I took to show their diversity of colour and patterning.

 

And, of course, I like to include some of the glasshouse in the background if I can because I love the architecture of it and the contrast between its straight lines and the curvaceous plants.

 

There was something unusual and unexpected at the end of the route with a few displays like this based on Cameroonian culture. Unusual and unexpected was a good way to end a lovely trail.