Featured in this episode

Tree Gang in Gibraltar

Tree planting

Maintaining Kew's heritage trees

Orchid festival

The oldest pot plant in the world

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• Episode 12

BBC's 'A Year at Kew'

Episode 12

Tree Gang in Gibraltar

Beneath the Rock of Gibraltar is the Alameda Botanic Gardens. Though the gardens are nearly two centuries old, their trees have seldom had specialist attention. As Gibraltar approaches its 300th anniversary, Kew’s Tree Gang leap to the rescue, but little do they know they are to encounter the difficult and prickly Gibraltan speciality, processionary caterpillars.

Tree planting

Every year the Arboricultural Unit plant over one hundred trees in the gardens. The team is assembled for the last and most unusual planting of the year – on one of the islands in the middle of Kew’s lake. Every one of the trees has to be rowed over in a small boat.

Maintaining Kew's heritage trees

Kew’s trees suffer from ground compaction due to the thousands of visitors who walk across their root plates to get a closer look at these magnificent trees every year. To minimise the damage the Tree Gang use a machine which blasts air into the ground and loosens the soil from around the roots, ensuring the trees will be healthy for many years to come.

Orchid festival

Every year the Princess of Wales Conservatory is transformed by the annual Orchid Festival, providing a blaze of colour at the end of a grey winter. Thousands of orchids arrive from all over the world – and with just days to go one consignment from Holland is already a day late. Will the Festival be ready on time?

The Oldest Pot Plant in the World

In the Palm House stands the oldest pot plant in the world. It’s over one hundred and eighty years since this Cycad last grew a cone. Emma Fox, Keeper of the House, has noticed developments – will it be a cone or just another flush of leaves?

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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