Enter the Kingdom of Plants

If any sound is going to make plants happy it’s the dulcet tones of David Attenborough, the whispering doyen of nature program presenters, whose abilities put him so far above his peers he is like a palm tree in a cabbage patch.

ABC1 is currently screening Kingdom of Plants, a three-part documentary filmed mostly in greenhouses in London’s Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, which may sound a bit parochial and dull but in fact is quite exciting: Kew is home to 90 per cent of the world’s known plant species. 

It’s all here – from unsuspecting bugs being trapped and dissolved to bamboos that grow at a metre a day – all illustrated with superb footage (with lots of time lapse) and narrated by you-know-who.

If you missed episode 1, Life in the Wet Zone, you can catch it on iview.

Episode 2, Solving the Secrets, is on ABC1 at 7.30pm on Sunday, October 28, and the final episode, Survival, is being screened the same time the following week.

You can even buy an iPad app that takes you on an interactive tour of Kew. Or buy the DVD set here.