Celebrating Colombia at London’s Annual Orchid Festival

Last year, I wrote about visiting Kew Gardens as a day trip from the city to relax and revel in the beauty of the orchid display. 

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Each year, Kew puts on an orchid festival. Returning for the 24th year, this year’s show was taken over by 1,100 species of orchids representative of Colombia.

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Kew Gardens used to be the private playground of the royal family, but was transformed into a botanical garden in the 1840s. Now, Kew is home to over 30,000 plants spread across lawns, greenhouses and flower beds- it’s the largest and most diverse collection of living plants anywhere in the world.

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This year’s orchid show reflect’s Colombia’s diverse landscape- from tropical beaches to snow-capped mountains.

In addition to revelling in the beauty of the show, I learned Colombia is home to 4,270 species of orchid- the most in the world.

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Meandering the conservatory, I was amazed- colourful arches of flowers, a ‘carnival of animals’ made up of blossoms and a cascade of colourful hanging vandas meant to represent Colombia’s famous rainbow river, Caño Cristalesm.

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I’m so glad we returned to see another year of the orchid festival- it was truly breathtaking.

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Have you ever been to the Kew orchid festival? Or another similar festival where you live? 

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