Sunday 16 August 2015

Day 228 - August 16th


Today we visited the National Botanic Garden of Wales. 

The garden covers 568 acres and includes a nature reserve, formal gardens and the the huge dome - The Great Glasshouse. The Great Glasshouse is the largest single span glasshouse in the world and contains many endangered species of plant from around the world.




Outside near the Wild Garden stands a huge life size model of a bull. From a distance I thought it was made of willow but close up I saw that it was actually made from metal and 'stuffed' with  sheep's wool.



Lara found a comfy seat by the lake to check her emails!





Beside The Great Glasshouse is an exhibition of giant hardwood tree stumps highlighting the rate of deforestation in the world. There is a video here about this 'Ghost Forest'.  





A sign near the trees encouraged visitors to touch, smell, hug, draw or do whatever else to get to know and love the Ghost Forest. After a little hesitation and initially just sitting on a tree Lara decided to try hugging a tree.




The garden was of course full of flowers and here just a selection of those we saw.



















After our visit to the Botanic Gardens we stopped off at Llansteffan beach on the way home. Llansteffan is across the estuary from Ferryside and during the 19th and 20th century visitors would catch a ferry from Ferryside to Llansteffan to visit the castle perched on the hill above.







2 comments:

Juliet said...

Looks like a lovely and very interesting garden!

Maggie said...

That is somewhere I have wanted to visit for some time.