Everyone’s heard of Kew Gardens, but be sure to check out their rural High Weald location of Wakehurst Place. Here you’ll find 500 acres of plants from around the world, as well as a wild wetland and the extensive Millennium Seed Bank. You can wander through Coates Wood, an atmospheric woodland filled with trees of Australasia and South America, before heading to the Pinetum to stand under the shadow of a towering conifer trees.
The Millennium Seed Bank is a vital visiting location for learning about the threat of extinction that faces the world’s plants. Built in, you guess it, 2000, the Millennium Seed Bank is an extensive bank of seeds carefully stored to ensure we’ll never lose their flora. The seeds are collected and preserved ex situ (definition: away from their natural habitat), and environmental scientists have worked hard to protect almost all of the UK’s native plant species. By 2020 they aim to have preserved 25% of the world’s plant species.
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