Charisma, Culture and Conservation: A walk through the Orchids Festival at Kew and a lesson in aesthetics in conservation  

After an unrelenting string of grey, rainy days in London, I lucked out with one of those rare sunny February mornings for my visit to Kew Gardens. If you feel this review is overtly positive, we can collectively agree to thank the day when life seemed briefly, wonderfully uncomplicated again. With sunglasses and a cap on, I felt like a reporter on a particularly enjoyable assignment: wandering among pretty flowers and telling you exactly how they made me feel.  

Passing the Palm House Conservatory and the ducks milling about the lake, I reached the surprisingly crowded entrance to the Princess of Wales Conservatory, home to the Orchids Festival. The moment I stepped inside, sunlight filtered down through the glass roof and the dry warmth of the arid zone wrapped around me.  

The exhibit was designed as a looping path through three climate zones, arid, tropical and temperate, each highlighting specific orchid species. This year’s theme, China, coinciding with the Lunar New Year of the Horse, aimed to showcase the biodiversity of the country that houses ten per cent of the world’s known plant life. Co-created with community advisory groups, the exhibition promised a journey through the stories of Chinese orchid culture, which felt like an invitation to see a familiar plant through an entirely new lens.  

“In Confucian philosophy, the orchid represents the noble scholar that requires no audience or praise to be virtuous,” noted Dennis Kwong Thye Lee, one of the community advisors for the festival.  

I was certainly an eager audience, though admittedly a little taken aback to find more cacti than orchids in the opening section. Slight disappointment aside, I kept going and was soon rewarded. My heart lifted as I entered the tropical zone, nearly engulfed by enormous leaves and a sea of deep greens, pinks, purples and yellows. The warm, scented humidity briefly dissolved London from my mind and placed me inside a small, enchanted cocoon of colour.  

The dragon, phoenix and suspended koi, constructed from orchids and dried leaves and floating over lily pad-covered pools, were real highlights, exactly as intended. The interspersed stories of orchids in Chinese art, textiles, food and medicine threaded through the space, helping me connect not just with the flowers but with the long relationship between culture and conservation.  

The festival lured visitors in with beauty, but it also served as a gentle reminder of how aesthetics and pleasure can be used to underline the urgency of conservation. As superficial as it seems, the pleasure of being within nature, although highly manicured in this case, works to remind people of how important it is not to lose it. The first part of the exhibit leaned heavily into atmosphere and personal stories, while the final section introduced a few snippets of conservation work. Many biologists and philosophers argue that biodiversity can be defended through its aesthetic value, since beauty has always had a powerful hold on humanity.  

For me, this aesthetic appeal is both a tool for drawing attention to conservation and a concern. As a science communicator, learning how to make science engaging without resorting to moral lecturing is part of the craft. Aesthetics are undeniably useful for capturing attention. However, it can be a slippery slope if decisions of who and what to study and protect are made based on aesthetic value. Within conservation biology, this concern is growing as spectacularly colourful frogs or butterflies receive considerably more research attention than their drabber relatives, not necessarily because they’re more important, but because they’re attractive. Many conservationists argue that efforts grounded in whole ecosystems, rather than centred on a single charismatic species, offer far greater benefits for long-term biodiversity.  

Back to the conservatory, a small detour into an adjoining room brought me face-to-face with some rather neglected-looking insectivorous plants, yellowing leaves, and drooping edges. I puzzled over their sorry state for a few minutes before returning to the curated paradise of bright orchids and glowing lanterns, following the sweet-smelling path.  

Eventually, I found myself back in the arid zone, saturated by beauty. I realised I would have liked to learn more about the biology of the orchids, their deceptive pollination strategies, their ecological roles, and their oddities. The festival, ultimately, leaned more towards spectacle than understanding.  

Still, there is something fitting about ending on the image of epiphytic orchids: plants that flourish by clinging to the branches of others, basking in bright but indirect light, catching the breeze and avoiding the competition below. Orchids, the forest’s diva, or the quiet Confucian scholar, depending on your mood, had their moment in the spotlight at Kew. And perhaps, in that glow, they gained a few more admirers who believe in conserving them.  

Article written by Shweta Vasaya, on March 3, 2026