Day Out at the Botanical Gardens

The National Botanical Gardens of Wales is about half an hour away from us, I first paid it a visit 2 years ago when  I was up here looking at properties, yesterday they had a members event on and my neighbour C is a member, members and a guest could get in free and they had an end of season plant sale on, so we headed off for a trip out, it would be rude not to take up the offer.

In the entrance there is this stunning water feature, the water runs down the glass on the inside, its a simple clever design.

Yes these are Banana trees fruiting outside in Wales, and around the bottom of them is ginger plants all in flower, there was lots of banana trees I must find out how they protect them through the winter.

 The vegetable garden was brilliant I really liked this bean arch, it had a mixture of beans growing over it, I may have to steal this idea. It was nice to see all the beads laid out and a vast variety of vegetable growing that they use in the restaurant. 

 They had lots of areas of wild flower beds, I really fancy having wild flower areas, they had various mixtures of seeds available to buy and I did buy a packet.

 In the courtyard they had this intriguing piece, on closer inspection you can see its all made from broken crockery and ornaments click on the picture to enlarge it, this has given me an idea and I am now on the hunt for broken crockery and ornaments.

I did get two packets of seeds, wildflower meadow mix that i would like to put along the edge of the drive where the trenches were dug out for the water pipes, and some Gunnera seeds, I have always loved these plants, Lost Gardens of Heligan have some fantastic giant specimens you can walk under.

This book was on offer for £10 it has been put together by the national botanical garden with funding from the Welsh Government to encourage more people in wales to grow there own vegetables, I must say that not many people seem to grow veg around here, strange that, it also explains some of the challenges growing up here in the hills and how to overcome them.

I only bought 4 plants a lovely David Austin Roses that is going in the front bed I dug out the other day, a large Rosemary plant and Sage Plant as mine were not brought with us they were to big to risk digging up, the ones I bought yesterday were in 5lt pots and were only £3 each. I also bought a Bears Breeches again in a 5lt pot for £3.50. 

It was lovely day out, as it is so close to us I would like to return on lots of occasion's throughout the seasons to see the changing of the seasons, I will look into a membership as they do lots of members events throughout the year. You can find out more of the Botanical Garden here National Botanical Garden