Garden party! Botanical site's blooming great anniversary

THIS month the National Botanic Garden of Wales in Carmarthenshire celebrates a significant milestone as it marks 25 years since it opened to the public at the turn of the new millennium.

- IAN LEWIS

Since welcoming its first visitors on May 24, 2000, the £43m garden, near Llanarthne in the Towy Valley, has grown into a globally recognised centre for biodiversity, conservation, horticulture, education and wellbeing.

When it launched, the garden was one of the biggest Millennium Projects in Wales and one of the first new botanical gardens in the UK in over 200 years.

The idea of a botanic garden on the site of Middleton Hall dates back to 1990, but it was not until the advent of big-scale Lottery funding in the mid-1990s that the project became a reality.

However, it was not all plain sailing and the attraction has had its ups and downs.

Four years after opening, it came within days of closing. The attraction struggled to sustain itself and, in 2004 only a rescue package from the then Assembly, the Millennium Commission and Carmarthenshire Council saved it from closing.

A series of Welsh Government bailouts left many wondering whether the garden with its stunning award-winning glasshouse would survive. A Welsh Government grant of £250,000 was handed over in 2010 to deal with cashflow difficulties, and a review of its future launched.