• Win free entry for two to the world-famous Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew†

Win free entry for two to the world-famous Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew

The gardens at Kew

As a designated Unesco World Heritage site, the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, are home to over 50,000 living plants. In fact, Kew has one of the most diverse collections of living plants of any botanic garden in the world, encompassing plants from tropical, temperate, arid and alpine climates.

Enjoy discovering the gardens throughout the seasons with highlights whenever you visit. The Alpine House is a delight in spring with its tiny treasures, or the natural woodland areas aglow with naturalised bulbs. The Mediterranean Garden and King William’s Temple come to life in summer, while the Grass Garden glows in the lowering light of autumn. Not to mention Kew’s historic glasshouses, housing varied displays from around the world.

Exhibitions are held regularly in the gardens’ various spaces and April sees the reopening of Kew Palace, Royal Kitchens and Queen Charlotte’s Cottage, offering a delightful insight into the gardens’ history.

Landmark exhibition

Paradise Lost, 4 April – 20 September 2020 The first, UK, solo exhibition by Dutch-born, Mexico-based visual artist Jan Hendrix, Paradise Lost features new works in a number of media that convey the artist’s response to the transformation of Sydney’s Botany Bay.

Botany Bay was once beautiful and pristine, teaming with endemic flora and fauna – its name a response to the huge number of plants that were recorded and collected there in 1770 by European botanists sailing on the HMS Endeavour voyage to the South Pacific.

Paradise Lost will explore both the beauty and fragility of the natural world and its deterioration to make way for contemporary human existence. The historical material, collected by Sir Joseph Banks and his companions, is the starting point to Hendrix’s collection of beautiful and thought-provoking art, with added poignancy given Australia’s recent devastating fires.

Entry included in entry to the Gardens.

This picture Kew’s breathtaking Palm House is at the heart of the gardens. Right Mirror Pavilion III, 2020 by Jan Hendrix forms the centrepiece to the Paradise Lost exhibition. The intricate metallic form is inspired by the plants Banksia serrata and Banksia solandri.