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It’s worth a trip to Kew to see spring arrive with a flourish at the Royal
Botanic Gardens, but if you get there before 31 March, head for the Princess of
Wales plant house for the orchid festival, a dazzling display of evolutionary
bad and good taste. Orchid design does, however, argue against a single creator
of the Universe—those gross pouched, lurid magenta and lime-green
monstrosities are too many light years away from the delicate spider orchids.
Admission to gardens £4.50, children £2.50.