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In recent years, visiting Kew Gardens’ historic, 180-year-old Palm House has been an increasingly bittersweet experience. It’s a ravishingly beautiful space, with intricate white-painted ironwork and delicate glass panes housing palms and ferns that have thrived there for hundreds of years. But it’s become increasingly hard not to notice the red rust blooming through the paintwork and the leaves pressing up against the glass, ready for a newer, sturdier home.
In autumn next year, the Palm House will finally close for a big overhaul – and now Kew Gardens is launching a new appeal to safeguard it for centuries to come.
Dame Judi Dench is the Palm House’s official ambassador, and she’s urging the public to donate to save the building. ‘Kew’s Palm House is one of Britain’s great wonders,’ the actress said. ‘It is an irreplaceable symbol of beauty, discovery, and hope. Please support the renovation of this iconic glasshouse, and you will be making an investment in both our heritage and our future.’
Donors can opt to give a specific sum or they can sponsor a pane of glass or a tropical plant species to get a digital gift certificate – a handy Christmas present for the fern fanatic on your list. The fundraiser is hoping to achieve £1 million in donations, which is just a fraction of the £66m it’ll cost to complete the massive revamp.
The Palm House will be closed for three to four years for the works to take place. And it sounds like that work will be highly labour intensive. Since spring 2025, Kew’s horticulturalists have been gradually rehoming the glasshouse’s plant population. By February 2027, the last of the 1000-plus plants living there will have been moved out, giving visitors the chance to see the empty structure until the autumn.
Then, the scaffolding will go up and the works will begin in earnest, with 16,000 new panes of glass to fit, and restoration of this antique structure. The goal is both to make it more stable, and to future-proof it too: the new Palm House is aiming for net zero, with an energy efficient design that'll replace the old gas boilers with more modern ways of keeping it warm all winter.
A fully electrified air and water source heat pump system will be fitted, insulation will be improved, and there'll be new rainwater and heat storage systems too. There’s also a commitment to looking at improved accessibility, as exploring the current Palm House involves climbing delicate spiral staircases which not all visitors can use.
If you want to see some of the building’s greatest horticultural treasures in the mean time, you can look elsewhere around Kew’s collections: you’ll find the Eastern Cape giant cycad (aka the world’s oldest potted plant) soaking up the sun in the Temperate House until its beautiful home is ready to welcome it back.
Get the most out of your visit to Kew Gardens with Time Out’s guide.
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