Science and nature: Kew Gardens fundraiser for tropical Palm House

The Royal Botanic Gardens Palm House in Kew has launched a public appeal to raise £1 million ($1.3m) as part of an almost $90 million project to completely refurbish its iconic glasshouse.

Opened in 1848, the Palm House is a Grade-1 listed building – England's highest classification of historical protection. And the site's renown is worldwide: Since 2003, the entire Kew Gardens estate has been listed as a UNESCO heritage site.

Such extensive protection requires expensive renovation – which is a problem Kew's director of development, Judith Kerr, is determined to solve. 

"We've raised about half of the £66 million ($87m) project costs," Kerr tells CGTN, "and we're talking to the government to further support – as well as private philanthropists and some trusts and foundations. 

"We have a further £5 million ($6.6m) that we're hoping to raise from our philanthropists. And of that, we're hoping £1 million ($1.3m) will come from the public." 

As its name suggests, the Palm House is designed to mimic tropical and subtropical conditions, to suit the specimens of scientific interest brought there from around the world. But this mini tropical rainforest has to be heated, and misted continually – and those hot and humid conditions have taken their toll. 

Tonnes of the 19th-century iron structure need to be treated and repainted. More than 16,000 glass panes need to be replaced and upgraded to improve the conservation impact of this grand old glasshouse. The project is expected to take four or five years.

To conserve the botanical treasures inside, Kew's botanists and horticulturists are propagating – producing new plants from existing specimens – as many as possible of the hundreds of plant species that have made a home in the Palm House.

Botanical horticulturist Anja Seymour has been working at Kew for several years, but she acknowledges that this is her biggest responsibility to date.

"Four or five years ago, I was only really just starting in my career," she tells CGTN. "And so to have this kind of responsibility so early on, it's really exciting for me. I really love the collections in the Palm House, and I love propagating."

Seymour and her colleagues have a state-of-the art propagating glasshouse to work in and conserve plants for the future.

"We take the cuttings into this tent that's behind me, and when they've rooted, we can put them on," she explains. "We keep a few extra back-ups, just in case – things don't always work as planned. 

"Eventually we will whittle them down to two or three specimens, so that we have a nice selection to plant from in a few years' time when the Palm House is ready."

While the appeal for donations goes ahead, the process continues of moving the rest of the plants out of the old glasshouse before it's closed to the public next February. Work is expected to start sometime in the autumn of 2027.

Around 40 species of plants have to be moved from the Palm House. But the scientific investigation continues, as biochemist and research leader Dr Tom Prescott explains.

"The plants are, if you like, a kind of living laboratory. There's so many things that you can do with a living plant that you can't do with a preserved dried plant," he says. "Kew does have  one of the biggest collections of preserved plants, but the living plants – in terms of asking interesting questions scientifically, that's really where the action is."

"These plants, whatever their properties, are protected and used in the future – it's so important. There's lots of different ways of looking at it, but the Palm House, first of all, is an inspiration for the public."

Kew Gardens attracted 2.25 million visitors in 2025, and many of them head straight for the Palm House – one of Kew's biggest buildings, and attractively positioned overlooking a lake. 

As those visitors – ranging from excited schoolchildren to relaxing pensioners – file in, they'll notice how this man-made rainforest is slowly being thinned out.

Judith Kerr is aware of the size of her responsibilities.

"This is one of our iconic places – when you think of Kew, you think of the Palm House," she says. "It's not only an incredibly historic and vital building, but also we house really rare, important and endangered species here.

"It's one of the biggest tasks for the entire organization."