Just a brief mention that next Sunday, June 28th, at the National Botanic Garden of Wales (NBGW), the third annual Wales Wildflower day will be hosted. By way of a sneak preview we were fortunate to be able to visit this last Friday for a member’s coffee morning and guided walk through a tiny section of the wildflower meadows at the Garden’s Waun Las National nature reserve as well as being given a preview of the new beds located by the Biomass heating Complex. Below is the bed representing some of the special plants from Snowdonia’s mountains…These have been developed to showcase selections of different habitats from round the country and the unique flora that these different environments support.

The meadows at the NBGW are extremely diverse, and probably too extensive to view in one visit, but I hope that these photos will encourage you along next Sunday. The Botanic Gardens always have so much to see that we’ve never made it into the meadows before. What have we been missing!

Huge swathes of native wildflowers, including masses of Orchids… and with the weather warming up lots of interesting insects around too – we got close to colourful Five-spot Burnet moths in the meadow…and whilst looking at the more artificially created, but now diverse ‘meadows’ surrounding the Great Glasshouse, there are large numbers of beautiful Common Blue and Skipper butterflies now around – though these are a little more camera shy. I took the photos below elsewhere.

If you want to check out the differences between Cat’s Ears and Hawkbits, go and have a look – there are thousands of flowers to examine. Or just stand and look open mouthed in amazement!

If you’ve wondered what Eyebrights look like, find them studding the under storey in many areas, and borrow a volunteer’s lens to examine the stunning details on the flower’s tiny petals. And then there are the wetter meadows on the left as you arrive …

And I haven’t included any images of the ‘gardens ‘themselves. But what about this European thistle flowering in the Double walled garden? Spectacular.And maybe a botanist/plants person could tell me what the taller white flowers, pink in the bud are in the image below? A bit like Meadowsweet flower clusters, but with more fern like foliage. Planted in groupings in the ‘meadows’ behind the Great Glasshouse. Do leave a comment if you have the answer… 

Click here for visitor information for the NBGW. There will be guides on hand and lots of information and advice for visitors about the garden’s spectacular collections of wildflower meadows.

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