Thursday, March 14, 2019

Who knew that orchids bloom in nearly every shade of the rainbow and beyond?

Every year, the annual Orchids Festival at Kew Gardens in London impresses me! This year was no exception, once I actually got inside the conservatory. When we went on opening weekend, the queue to get inside Kew’s 24th annual orchid show was more than an hour long, so I had to return on one of my days off work right before it ended.

This year’s theme focused on Columbia’s diverse landscape and its flora and fauna that inhabit it, complete with a gigantic sloth and jaguar replicas. The show included approximately 6,200 orchids, including Columbia’s national flower – the Flor de Mayo (Cattleya trianae).

Did you know that Columbia has more than 4,000 orchid species – more than anywhere else in the world? That’s four times more than what grows in the “tiny” country of Thailand which featured in Kew’s Orchids Festival last year.
Stepping into the Princess of Wales Conservatory, at first, I felt like I was in an arid dessert complete with cacti, but soon the temperatures turned tropical and humid as I moved to the next rooms. I love visiting Kew Gardens anytime of the year, but during the winter months, the orchids seem to add an extra dose of cheerfulness on otherwise grey days. Of course, I couldn’t resist taking more than 200 photos – no surprise there!

Hope you enjoy the orchid photo show!

Which photo is your favorite?


RAINBOW

Seriously, the different shades of orchids look like a tropical rainbow!
Look closely at this red, yellow and white orchid below…doesn’t it look like a Ronald McDonald character in the center?
Columbian artists like Omar Castañeda created original sculptures such as these to feature alongside the Colombian orchids from Kew’s collections.



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1 comments:

Steve said...

Thanks for sharing such a great article.