Enjoy a brilliant day out at the Welsh Botanical Gardens

Do you fancy a fun day out getting back to nature? Are you eager to forget the stress and cares of day-to-day living and instead enjoy a few hours surrounded by beautiful landscapes? You can experience all of this and more with a visit to the wonderful Welsh Botanical Gardens.

These fabulous gardens are located near Llanarthney in the Towy Valley, Carmarthenshire.  As well as being a popular visitor attraction, they are also an important centre for botanical research and conservation.

Insight into the gardens

The Welsh Botanical Gardens or the National Botanic Garden of Wales as they are officially known stretch over 560 acres and are home to more than 8000 different kinds of plants. There is always plenty to see here, making this a great attraction for people of all ages to visit at any time of the year. Visitors can discover a wide variety of themed gardens that cater to different tastes and interests and which showcase the extensive and diverse plants that the garden has to offer.

The Great Glasshouse

The National Botanic Garden of Wales is so large and there are so many things to discover that at least a whole day is required to fully explore it. However, for visitors who are short of time there are some highlights that should definitely be seen and one of these is the Great Glasshouse. This huge glasshouse is an incredible sight to be seen and also serves an extremely important purpose. It is the world’s biggest single span glasshouse and is used to conserve some of the world’s most endangered plants.

The glasshouse features different zones in order to display plants from six different parts of the world that all feature Mediterranean climates and landscapes which in combination provide ideal growing conditions for these plants. The glasshouse is designed to reflect these conditions in order to provide an environment in which these plants can thrive outside of their natural habitats.

The Double Walled Garden

Another must-see highlight of the botanic garden is the Double Walled Garden. The Double Walled Garden design is more associated with Scottish than Welsh gardens and features an outer stone wall and interior brick wall that create different microclimates. The garden design originated as a means of extending the growing seasons of the various plants that can be found within it.

Today the Double Walled Garden is made up of four quadrants with a dipping pool in the centre. The first three quadrants provide insight into the evolution of flowering plants, enabling visitors to discover this evolution as they walk outwards from the garden’s centre. The fourth quadrant features a kitchen garden in keeping with the original purpose of this particular garden and some of the plants grown here are used in the botanic garden’s restaurant.

The Double Walled Garden is also home to the Tropical House which features a number of striking plants that originate from tropical regions of the world.

Waun Las National Nature Reserve

In addition to the formal garden itself, visitors who are keen to ramble amongst more informal settings should stroll over to the beautiful adjacent nature reserve known as Waun Las National Nature Reserve . The reserve encompasses a range of landscapes from woodland to meadows and can be explored via a network of footpaths. One of the highlights of the national nature reserve is a charming wooded valley that features a stunning waterfall.

A great garden for getting out and about in at any time

The National Botanic Garden of Wales is open every day of the year apart from Christmas Eve and Christmas Day and there is always an abundance of sights to discover at any given season. The garden really deserves a full day of exploration in order to do justice to all of the fantastic areas and plants within it. However, even if visitors can only spare an hour or two, this brilliant garden will delight and intrigue at every turn and is one of the premier attractions in Wales.