The Chelsea Flower Show, held in London every summer for more than a century, is a British institution drawing around 150,000 gardening enthusiasts to enjoy spectacular floral displays.
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This year, there was an exhibit with a difference, featuring rare orchids from Hong Kong and other parts of Asia and the Pacific.
The vibrant display, with orchids from Kadoorie Farm and Botanic Garden in the New Territories, won a coveted gold medal and was visited by Queen Camilla. It also sent a powerful message about the need to protect the ecologically significant but endangered plants.
“We have got 150,000 bees in to look at the orchids,” said John Parke Wright IV, chairman of Orchid Conservation Chelsea, referring to the show’s visitors. “They are being pollinated with ideas about conservation and why it is important.”
Wright, who knows China well having worked for Jardine Matheson in the 1970s, was instrumental in forming the orchid group, comprising 25 institutions globally.
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