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Written by Administrator
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The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew celebrates its 250th anniversary in 2009 with a prominent new garden created by British garden designer and television personality Diarmuid Gavin.
The Great Pagoda, currently undergoing renovation, will re-open during the anniversary. The 10-floor structure is 163 feet tall and has 253 steps that lead to the top floor.
In spring 2009, Kew's “Spring Celebration” will return for the landmark year with the biggest display of seasonal spring color in Britain, featuring a crocus carpet, daffodils and snowdrops.
A special exhibition in the Nash Conservatory, “The Role of Botanic Gardens”, will explore the conservation role of botanic gardens around the world, featuring Kew’s Millennium Seed Bank, which will be celebrating its milestone of collecting and banking seeds from 10 percent of the world’s most vulnerable wild flowering plant species a year in advance of its 2010 target date.
Princess Augusta, King George III's mother, created the garden around Kew Palace in 1759. A major visitor attraction, it is designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Also next year, Britain celebrates the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin, one of Britain’s greatest botanists, and the 150th anniversary of the publication of On the Origin of the Species. Kew Gardens’ Herbarium is home to specimens collected by Darwin during his voyage on HMS Beagle. (www.kew.org)
The landmark Darwin exhibition will be at the Natural History Museum in London from Nov. 14 through April 19, 2009. It looks at Darwin’s life-changing journey aboard the HMS Beagle through the display of his notebooks, and artifacts and specimens he collected on his travels. (www.darwin200.org)
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