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Featured in this episode

Felling of the Beech tree

Go Wild Festival

Titan Arum

Invasion of Bees

Pest control in the Palm House

Find out more

If you've still got questions posed by the first series check out the extensive online Frequently Asked Questions

Other episodes

Episode 1

Episode 2

Episode 3

Episode 4

Episode 5

Episode 6

Episode 7

Episode 8

Episode 9

Episode 10

Episode 11

Episode 12

 

 

BBC's 'A Year at Kew' - first series shown in 2004

Episode 1

Felling of the Beech tree

At the south end of the garden an old beech tree has honey fungus and must come down. It's the last tree that Kew’s Tree Gang will fell during a busy winter, and is their sign that a long winter has finally given way to spring.

Go Wild Festival

Each year Kew plays host to a big summer festival. In 2003, the year of the BBC filming, the Go Wild festival represented a celebration of Britain’s wide range of flora and fauna. Simon Cole, manager of the conservation area, is in a race against time to get one of the main attractions, the human sized badger sett, ready for the launch day.

His brother, Tim, is also involved, building a Field Hospital entirely from reclaimed wood and materials to look at the medicinal uses of British plants through the ages. Will either be ready on time?

Titan Arum

The world’s largest flower is the Titan Arum and it’s also one of the smelliest. Kew staff have the unenviable job of caring for it and trying to work out if the bud will flower or not.

Invasion of Bees

It’s a busy weekend at Kew and the Kew Police Force have come across a problem. A swarm of bees have made hives in one of the trees and they have to be removed. Tony Hall, part time bee keeper and team leader in the arboretum, is called to the rescue.

Pest control in the Palm House

The Palm House is the finest existing Victorian glasshouse in the world and home to an extraordinary and exotic collection of plants. But Keeper Emma Fox has a problem with pests which is threatening the whole collection. She must don face mask and protective clothing to turn the Palm House back into a tropical rainforest and release millions of fungal spores to get rid of the pests.

 

Find out more

If you've still got questions posed by the BBC series check out the extensive online Frequently Asked Questions

 

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