The Level 2 Horticulture students concluded their botanical Spring Tours with a rather wet visit to The National Welsh Botanic Gardens.

The garden that opened in May 2000 was the first National Botanic Garden to be created in the new millennium and is home to the world’s largest single – spanned glasshouse, which was designed by Lord Foster.  It has a good display of Mediterranean climate zone plants found in the Northern Hemisphere.

Despite the wet weather the garden displayed beautiful seasonal colour and the living apothecary garden was beginning to show signs of growth, whilst the indoor display demonstrated the medicinal properties of plants.

Tutor Emma Butler stated ‘The Botanic Garden represents a wide variety of plants of botanical importance.  The plant representations from different Countries allows students to see the adaptations plants make to enable them to survive conditions that we don’t experience her in the U.K.’  In addition the apothecary demonstrates the importance of plants within the medical world and their various uses.

The students will have the opportunity to visit Kew in the summer term to experience the many different plant species represented there and how they are used effectively  within the landscape.