In A Welsh Country Garden

I stood within the largest single-span greenhouse in the world. It sat sleek and low-slung like a huge teardrop on a hill. All around me were tropical plants stretching their multi-coloured leafy protruberances towards the sky. The paths wended their way through, over narrow walk-bridges and past pools filled with golden fish. A group of trainee wood-carvers sat in a long row silently focused on their work.

The National Botanic Garden of Wales is the place to go if you find yourself in Carmarthernshire on a clement summer's day. It covers over 500 acres of a former private estate that had fallen into ruin. Three of the large pools have been restored to their former glory, and water features strongly in the artworks dotted around. A snaking channel of water burbles constantly down the main boulevard before ending in a spiral at the Circle of Decision, so called because there are so many directions to choose from.

Colourful flowering plants were everywhere, neatly presented. The evolution of plantlife was presented in one walled garden near the yellow house that was the old servant's quarters, with various living descendants of the earliest types growing there. Did you know the magnolia tree is one of the most ancient, and its flowers can only be pollinated by beetles because bees did not exist when the magnolia first appeared?

I wandered into the tropical butterfly house and marvelled at the irridescent colours of the large flying packs of butter.

Inside the extensive “double-walled garden”, with an inner brick wall and an outer stone wall, laid out very formally, there was one quarter dedicated to the growing of vegetables. This is where I felt most at home, and dallied between the leeks and the peas for a while.

On a gentle hillside across from the glasshouse dome had been planted trees from different corners of the world that have similar climates to Wales. I strolled alone through China but didn't have time to check out the monkey puzzle trees of Chile. They were still fairly young and the native weeds were threatening to overcome one or two.

Alongside the boulevard were laid large boulders. This was the “Rock of Ages” display, which in chronological order showed stone from different geological times beginning with the pre-Cambrian. Small signs on them highlighted the names of the lichens growing there apart from one which was limestone and so too uncomfortably alkaline for them.

They do research here too - they are investigating the wonderful properties of honey, perhaps from their own bee house, and have DNA-barcoded all Wales' native plant species, the first country ever to do so.

So it gets the Swan thumbs-up for a day out in South Wales. Just check the weather forecast first!