LONDON (AP) — The weather outside is frightful — it has been for weeks, with parts of the country experiencing the worst floods in decades — but it’s positively warm inside the Princess of Wales Conservatory. It’s humid too, tropical in fact.

The heat and moisture are necessary for the tens of thousands of orchids inside — orchids that are providing flower-loving Brits with reason to believe that this grim, soggy winter, with its record January rainfall, may soon be over.