The Kew orchid festival, in brief

[kaberett]

On Monday morning, I had an obnoxiously early routine medical appointment of uncertain purpose in Hammersmith. By the time you've got to Hammersmith from Enfield you're about three-quarters of the way to Kew, and they'd just e-mailed me to tell me that they'd extended this year's orchid festival by a bonus extra week, so having despatched said medical appointment (rather more productively than I'd expected to, to be fair) I bimbled around the Hammersmith charity shops for a bit before getting myself on a bus out toward Richmond.

And I am so glad I did, because it turns out that this year KEW BUILT ME AN ORCHID VOLCANO.



This does not do it justice but you'll just have to trust me, okay. It's on the waterlily pond in the Princess of Wales glasshouse, and words are insufficient to express my glee: it's a dark base, some sort of sculpting material over chicken wire, only they left some of it unsurfaced so that they could arrange plants through it. They've got a riot of red and pink and orange orchids and bromeliads and lilies and various fascinating foliage plants cascading down the sides evoking lava flows; they've got amazing structural white bits coming out top as an ash plume. The reason for this is that this year their focus is on Indonesian orchids and other flora and fauna and, well, Indonesia has a lot of volcanoes, but just -- they could have made this JUST FOR ME, PERSONALLY, and I had NO IDEA it was a thing and I am DELIGHTED BEYOND WORDS.





Two close-ups of a pitcher plant, in slightly different focus, emphasising some features (ridged lips; weird spiky hairs) I'd not previously consciously observed.


More orchids (third one of this batch being my fave this year):




One of the other things going on was Animal Sculptures; I didn't photograph most of them (though you'll spot a Sumatran tiger in the background of one of the above if you squint) but I was particularly taken by the white rhinocerous, rendered in birch bark:


Bonus: a new favourite iris, from the Davies Alpine House, which is currently mostly full of perfectly attractive daffodils but c'mon this was always going to be my favourite. (I almost bought a Katharine Hodgkin from the plant shop, but I still don't have anywhere dedicated for bulbs to go in and I've got a lot of tulips gamely trying to sprout currently, so alas those are my priority.)


FINAL BONUS: poison dart frog, taken for me using my phone by someone very kind who was (correctly) concerned that I couldn't see it from where I was sat. SPOT THE FROB.



The run's been extended to the 15th and I very much enjoyed pootling around (being as I'm already a Friend of the gardens so it was functionally free); lovely and quiet on a Monday afternoon. I didn't buy a Vanilla planifolia from the gift shop because they're twenty-five quid and there's no way I'll be able to keep one functionally alive, but Adam's deeply curious about the concept so I might see if they're reduced next week -- when hopefully both the camellia (in bud, starting to blossom, not yet spectacular) and the wisteria (likewise in bud) might be slightly further advanced.

Comments

[kaberett]

Quickly: these do all have alt text in addition to title text that provides some image description; it's not entirely clear to me how to straightforwardly access same but I will fiddle with it in the morning.

Not pictured: a FANTASTIC conifer that had wee green sprays of leaves just starting to explore the world, along with BRIGHT PINK BITS that I can but assume are... flowers??? proto cones??? THEY WERE GOOD ANYWAY (but also Outdoors, in the Wind).

[alexwlchan]

:D

I indeed did not realise it was a volcano when you sent me the photo!

[aldabra]

*jealous* I went to the Cambridge Botanic Garden shop at lunchtime and they didn't have anything remotely like vanilla at all.

[azurelunatic]

FROB

[kaberett]

Kew doesn't normally have them in! They're all of about six inches tall! They want a minimum of 80% humidity and need hand-pollinating and if you don't manage to kill them off before the pods ripen (up to a year after setting, which is unlikely to happen in turn for at least three years) you then have at least six weeks of daily faff to cure them!

... A is kind of pro me giving it a go and is willing to spend his tech-bro salary on a plant I will inevitably kill, at which point I'm quite ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ SURE WHY NOT

ORCHID VOLCANO

[redsixwing]

Bright frob! Yes hello very good!

I am very impressed with the iris, and also the second orchid beneath the pitcher plant, the white one with lavender bits.

What lovely pictures. I'm glad you got to go, and glad again you posted them here.

Re: ORCHID VOLCANO

[kaberett]

Spider orchids! Spider orchids are GREAT.

Thank you for saying. <3

[judiff]

Wow! That is Amazing

[lokifan]

Awesome!!!!!!!!!!!

[lunabee34]

Froggie! Those flowers are gorgeous.

[worlds_of_smoke]

thank you for sharing these!! -hearteyes-

[umadoshi]

So much gorgeousness! *^^*

[ewt]

I must not go to Kew to buy a vanilla plant that I will not manage to keep alive
I must not go to Kew to buy a vanilla plant that I will not manage to keep alive
etc

[kaberett]

QUITE. It doesn't exactly look unfussy...

[tree_and_leaf]

That orchid volcano is amazing!

[oracne]

WOW, orchid volcano!!!

Re: ORCHID VOLCANO

[redsixwing]

*falls down a research hole*

Those ARE great! And I believe I'll stick to admiring them from a distance, as they would not appreciate my cold, dry climate AT ALL.

<3

[silveradept]

The volcano is very nicely done. The pictures are lovely.

Also, I cannot spot the frog, unless I zoom in on the actual picture itself, and then I can see something that looks like a frog, of it were hiding behind something.

[kaberett]

It is tiny! It is bright yellow! It peers out from behind its bromeliad! It has LEGS.

It then graciously condescended to actually sort of plap about the place a bit, which made it lots easier to see.

[kaberett]

I WAS SO PLEASED.

[booksarelife]

This is so awesome!! Also, I have to say that I’m incredibly appreciative of the (mostly) lack of coronavirus posts on here (and on my reading page in general because I’m getting quite enough from the rest of my life (and also I really appreciate the positivity of your blog and how nice and normal and calm and pretty it is because my life has sort of exploded-my college is switching to online learning and we have to leave campus)

[kaberett]

Yeah I reckon people can mostly get their panic elsewhere & my living room is for me! It's not like I have any particularly compelling insights; it's not like current events will be affected one way or another if I join in the screaming; I'm probably thinking about them but that doesn't mean I need to write about them!

[booksarelife]

I don’t have much panic in my social spheres, but there’s a point where I get tired of all discussion of it

[vass]

(closing tabs) ORCHID VOLCANO! BIRCH RHINO!

FROB

[kaberett]

i have been retroactively SO GLAD I dragged myself all the way out on public transport as my Last Outing. like. this is a good Last Outing to have had.