It’s the perfect place for a peaceful stroll at any time of year, but many people may not even know it’s there. Bangor University’s Treborth Botanic Garden is tucked away in a beautiful location on the shores of the Menai Strait.
This 45-acre hidden green oasis tells the story and preserves a nationally important collection of Welsh plants. One of only seven accredited botanical gardens in the country and the only university botanic garden in Wales Treborth is used for education and research as well as being open to visitors.
There’s a nationally important collection of rare Welsh ferns, some of which are usually only found at specific sites like Eyri, or at secret locations.
Visitors can also visit the newly planted herb garden to find out what medicinal plants were used down the ages in Wales, walk through ancient woodland and down to the rocky shoreline.
There’s also natural grassland, ponds, planted borders and a Chinese garden.
On chillier days the six glasshouses provide warmth with tropical and temperate areas andspecial environments for the university’s tropical orchid and carnivorous plant collections. Find out What’s On in Wales by signing up to our newsletter here
Treborth is right next to a Conservation Area and the garden is a Site of Special Scientific Interest in its own right. As well as being open to the public it conserves some of Wales’ important botanical heritage.
Almost 60 native Welsh fern species grow at Treborth, some of which are extremely rare and usually only grow in locations like the top of Eyri, or in secret locations.
As well as offering the public a rare opportunity to see species that normally only grow in ard-to-reach places the garden is also used for important research and plant identification.
Treborth’s fern collection is so unique it was recently officially recognised by Plant Heritage as the National Plant Collection® holder of Welsh native ferns, the first national collection to recognise Welsh native plants.
Richard Storey, horticulturist at Treborth said setting up the unique collection of ferns has been a labour of love and bringing together all of Wales’s native ferns meant the species are safeguarded for the future.
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Another recent draw to Treborth is its new Welsh Herbal Garden, which celebrates the heritage and folklore surrounding medicinal plants used in Wales through the ages.
The half-acre herb garden opened in the summer and now forms a central part of the site.
The collection tells the story of how people in Wales, including 12th century pioneers of modern medicine, the Physicians of Myddfai, used plants to treat ailments with herbs and plants.
Visitors can find out about the history of remedies in Wales such as how drinking a distilled water of red roses was used for toothache, bruised saffron as a sobering tonic and apples as a wart remover.
The herb garden, designed by Nicola Oakey will be used by students at Bangor University’s North Wales Medical School as a teaching resource to reflect modern as well as historical uses of plants as sources of medicines.
Professor Stephen Doughty, who heads the North Wales Medical School, said, “This wonderful teaching resource is so timely, as the North Wales Medical School launches a new Pharmacy programme this coming year to complement our growing and developing Medicine programmes.
“To have our students being able to interact with this garden and to understand more fully the rich heritage of drug and medicines development arising from plants, and indeed culture, is a real value and advantage to studying here in Bangor.”
For Natalie Chivers-Cross, head of Botanic Garden and Biodiversity at Bangor University, Treborth isn’t only valuable for scientific study but also to inspire future conservation and to show visitors the ecological and cultural importance of plants in Wales.
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