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Summer Holiday Fun in the Garden
School’s out for the summer – and there are family activities EVERY day of the school summer holidays here at the National Botanic Garden of Wales!
Enjoy the hay bale maze, water zorbing, our fab play park, and don’t forget to visit the tropical butterflies in Plas Pilipala!
Hawk Adventures are here every Tuesday and Wednesday of the summer holidays, with abseiling on Tuesdays, and tree climbing on Wednesdays.
The British Bird of Prey Centre
There are awesome encounters to be had EVERY day at the National Botanic Garden’s brand-new attraction – The British Bird of Prey Centre – with daily flying displays at 11:30am and 2:30pm!
There’s an additional £3 charge to the Centre, and you’ll be able to enjoy amazing flying displays by a Jack Merlin, Red Kites, and Angus, the White Tailed Sea Eagle!
Taste of Paradise (regained)
Ladies who lunch like Jane Austen are cordially invited to a Regency tea partyat the National Botanic Garden of Wales.
Dress up and party down is the message for visitors to the Carmarthenshire attraction on Saturday and Sunday July 29 and 30.
The invitation comes from ‘Middleton: Paradise Regained – Reclaiming a Regency Rarity’, the project to restore the fabulous Regency parkland of Middleton Hall, now the home of the Botanic Garden. And you can take a trip back in time to meet members of the Middleton Hall household from the early 19th century while Ladies in the height of Regency fashion will involve you in their conversations.
Find out all about the emergence of lunch and the art of taking afternoon tea. Come and feast your eyes on authentic display of Regency food, place settings and costumes and take tea on the lawns. Discover, too, all about Regency dining etiquette, dress codes and indeed the food eaten.
There will be the chance to sample an authentic Regency treat while you peruse typical Regency recipes for breakfast, lunch, dinner and supper as well as what food ‘hot’ at the time, and how it was grown, cooked, eaten and preserved in a time before fridges.
You do not need to book this event. Normal Garden entry fees apply – Regency Tea Party activities are free.
Garden offers Bridge toll discount
Severn Bridge tolls will be axed at the end of next year but did you know you can already get the cost of your crossing back with a visit to the National Botanic Garden of Wales?
Just an hour west of Cardiff and a couple of minutes from the main South Wales M4/A48 superhighway, the Botanic Garden is offering to discount admission to the Carmarthenshire attraction by the cost of your Severn Bridge toll.
Two people paying full price can claim their £6.70 bridge toll discount on production of their Second Severn Crossing receipt.
The Garden’s Head of Marketing David Hardy said: “It’s the least we can do. A lot of people see the tolls as a tax on tourism because it discourages visitors, which is why we are running the offer – and the end of next year is still a long way off which means there’s plenty of time to claim your discount.”
* The Botanic Garden admission discount only applies to two or more people paying the full adult admission price. The offer only applies to valid tickets issued to Vehicle Category 1 vehicles. Severn Bridge toll tickets must be dated within a month of your Garden visit ion. Not to be used in conjunction with any other offer. No photocopies.
The Garden’s first batch of honey!
The Garden’s resident beekeeper, Lynda, and her volunteers Sonia and Ele, have been uncapping the very first batch of honey from the Garden!
After successfully overwintering all of our Honey Bees, the colonies have built up nicely through spring, we are now out of the swarming season and the bees are busy bringing as much forage as they can.
This has put us in the fortunate position that we need to extract honey from comb to give the bees more space so they can forage for further stores.
At the inspection of the bee hives this week, we took off our first frames of sealed honey for extraction.
Let’s hope this good season continues and we are able to produce lots more honey going forward, so that there is plenty of stock for the Bees to over winter and possibly some to sell.
Watch this space!