Lego’s Botanicals range – giving eternal life to plants by recreating them from bricks – has gone from strength to strength, and the latest, the colorful and beautiful Lego Icons Orchid, might just be one of our favorites.
Reasons to buy
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Some great building techniques used
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Looks remarkably life-like
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Brick-built pot included
Reasons to avoid
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A rather repetitive build
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Dimensions: 15 x 11.5 x 9.5 inches / 39 x 40 x 24 cm
Recommended age: 18+
Lego’s Botanical Collection is into its second year now, with the Lego Icons Orchid being the fifth set to come from the series. A brick-built representation of a real Orchid plant, it’s life-like in its appearance and stature, making a fantastic display piece that isn’t overtly ‘Lego.’
If you're sitting in that cross section of people who love the natural world and Lego sets, then this Lego Icons Orchid might be perfect for you. It's also an ideal display piece for people who want flowers in their home, but can't have them due to allergies. Orchids are also notoriously difficult to keep alive at home, so this might be the best Lego set for anyone lacking a green thumb too.
The nature of the model means it’s rather repetitive to build, but confident Lego fans will have put this beauty together in around an hour. When it’s done, you have a truly wonderful display piece to admire for years to come.
It’ll probably come as no surprise that the Orchid has several repetitive sections. The plant pot, while intricate and cleverly made, involves placing the same tiles again and again in a circular pattern. The stems and the flowers themselves, too, are all essentially identical builds. You’ll likely find it easier to make all six flowers at once to speed up the build somewhat.
What is particularly enjoyable about the process, though, is that the instruction manual gives you interesting titbits along the way. For example, the interior structure of the plant pot – made out of circular frames stacked on top of each other – uses a building method modified from the tower of Hogwarts Castle.
(Image credit: Future)
While the instruction booklet is easy to follow for newcomers, with each step detailing only a few bricks at once, it’s not always very clear as to where things go. For instant, arranging the leaves and stems proved a bit of a challenge. Ultimately though, this is one of the few sets that doesn’t matter if it doesn’t exactly match the picture on the box; you could say that having the odd leaf or flower out of place makes it more unique.
(Image credit: Future)
Lego Icons Orchid review: Design
Some innovative design methods used here
Fantastic display piece
If you’re an ardent Lego fan you’ll get a kick out of some of Lego Orchid’s more unique building techniques. Reprinted Demogorgon minifigure heads from the Stranger Things’ The Upside Down set have been used for smaller blooms, and for the larger petals, a mixture of shields from Nexo Knights and big fig shoulder pads have been used. It may sound quirky, but it works to great effect.
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(Image credit: Future)
It only takes one glance to see how fantastic the orchid itself: the white petals truly pop against the dark green stems and leaves. But the plant pot deserves some love too. It may have been repetitive to build, but it looks great, and the uncommon slate blue color complements the plant wonderfully. There’s even a mulch effect achieved by sprinkling loose brown Lego bricks in the pot!
(Image credit: Future)
Should you buy Lego Icons Orchid?
The target market of the Lego Icons Orchid seems to be adults who are perhaps new to Lego. This is very much designed to be a long-lasting display piece – an item to proudly display in your home that isn’t too childlike or doesn’t scream ‘I PLAY WITH LEGO BRICKS’ to everyone who enters your home.
Not that we have any objection to that, with our own home littered with Lego models of all shapes and sizes. But this perhaps makes a great entry point; it’s not a complex build by any means, and it’s reasonably priced. If you’re a plant lover, it’ll complement any display of real flowers in your home. And, if you fancy something slightly different to build, we’re certain you won’t be disappointed.
(Image credit: Future)
Other Lego sets to consider
Lego’s Botanicals Collection is going strong, so if you enjoy building the Orchid, there’s a good chance you’ll love giving life to other brick-built plants too. And with the exception of the Lego Icons Bird of Paradise ($99.99/£89.99) they’re all the same, very reasonable, price of $49.99.
The Lego Icons Flower Bouquet is simply beautiful, with its colorful array of single-stemmed flowers, but you will need your own vase to display them. You can pick it up for $59.99/£54.99.
Also, the new Lego Icons Succulents – an arrangement of cacti – makes a gorgeous display piece at $49.99/£44.99. Plant lovers have truly been spoilt and we can’t wait to see what Lego bring out next.
Kim is a UK-based freelancewriter who focuses on Lego, toys and video game-related content. She's the co-creator of GameSpew.com and ThatBrickSite.com, where you'll find most of her work. If she's not building with plastic bricks, playing a video game, or writing about doing either of those things, you should probably check she's still breathing. You can find her on Twitter at @ichangedmyname.
