Treborth Botanic Garden

Screen 1 - Main Garden Room

This multipurpose space transforms into a scientific laboratory, field centre, and even a café! It is our main hub for activities and workshops, with a full working kitchen and IT set up for seminars and lectures. It is also home to our botanical library, gift shop and microscopes. 

Screen 2 - Garden Corridor 

This walkway guides you through to our Orchid House and Temperate House, toilets and part of our library. There is plenty of interesting botanical artwork and models along the way too. 

Screen 3 - Orchid House – Cool Section 

This is the cool growing section of our orchid house, where we showcase specimens that like cooler, shadier environments. 

The Orchid House provides a year-round inspirational source of teaching material for the University, and many extra mural organisations such as art classes. (It is perhaps where science and the arts combine well!) For the scientists, botanists and zoologists alike are attracted to find out more about what is the largest family of flowering plants, as most species have complex and intriguing relationships with their pollinators. The importance of their role for maintaining biodiversity in many ecosystems is quite evident.

Orchids are often the launch pad for young people inspiring them to find out more about the environments from which they come. All the tropical species are from environmentally sensitive areas, such that many are now known to exist only in cultivation! Economically, orchid species and hybrids are a global multibillion-dollar industry, for pleasure, food and medicine.

Screen 4 - Orchid House – Intermediate Section 

This is the intermediate growing section, where temperatures range from 15deg overnight to 27deg in the daytime. Many specimens in this section need a little more heat and light, and the pink grow lights support the light requirements of our tropical pitcher plants, the Nepenthes. 

The Orchid House provides a year-round inspirational source of teaching material for the University, and many extra mural organisations such as art classes. (It is perhaps where science and the arts combine well!) For the scientists, botanists and zoologists alike are attracted to find out more about what is the largest family of flowering plants, as most species have complex and intriguing relationships with their pollinators. The importance of their role for maintaining biodiversity in many ecosystems is quite evident.

Orchids are often the launch pad for young people inspiring them to find out more about the environments from which they come. All the tropical species are from environmentally sensitive areas, such that many are now known to exist only in cultivation! Economically, orchid species and hybrids are a global multibillion-dollar industry, for pleasure, food and medicine.

Screen 5 - Continuation of Orchid House – Intermediate Section 

The Nepenthes are a genus of carnivorous plant found mostly the tropical regions of Borneo and Sumatra, but some species are also found in India, Australia and Madagascar. They grow at a wide range of altitudes, with major distinctions made between highland and lowland species. Nepenthes traps can reach giant proportions and have been found holding the remains of birds, lizards and rodents.

Screen 6 - Orchid House – Warm Section 

This is the warm growing section, where temperatures range from 18deg overnight to 30deg in the daytime. We grow many species in this section epiphytically, meaning they need no soil or substrate to grow – just a piece of bark, or in the case of the Vandas, nothing at all. Their large, aerial root systems absorb water and nutrients from the air, so no need for soil! 

The Orchid House provides a year-round inspirational source of teaching material for the University, and many extra mural organisations such as art classes. (It is perhaps where science and the arts combine well!) For the scientists, botanists and zoologists alike are attracted to find out more about what is the largest family of flowering plants, as most species have complex and intriguing relationships with their pollinators. The importance of their role for maintaining biodiversity in many ecosystems is quite evident.

Orchids are often the launch pad for young people inspiring them to find out more about the environments from which they come. All the tropical species are from environmentally sensitive areas, such that many are now known to exist only in cultivation! Economically, orchid species and hybrids are a global multibillion-dollar industry, for pleasure, food and medicine.

Screens 7, 8 and 9 - Tropical House – Entrance 

At 18–35 degrees, the Tropical Glasshouse replicates the year- round warm and moist ‘rainforest’ conditions of the Earth’s tropical regions for plants ranging from South and Central America, Africa, Asia and northern parts of Australia.

The tropical glasshouse allows students, staff and the general public to learn and appreciate the huge diversity of plant life in the tropics.

The extreme competition for resources, especially light, results in a unique vegetation structure in the rainforests: a high dense canopy with a dark forest floor. This allows sun loving climbers such as the Birthwort Aristolochia gigantea and Dutchman’s Pipe (Aristolochia ringens) to provide shelter for many epiphytic bromeliads, orchids, ferns, carnivorous plants and spreading evergreens that are also popularly grown as house plants such as Fittonia and Tradescantia.

The glasshouse also provides great examples of tropical Ficus (Fig) species, including Ficus aurea and F.pumila Ficus is a pan-tropical genus of trees, shrubs and vines that are characterised by their tasty fruit which displays a distinctive pollination syndrome, utilising a wasp for pollination. Many Ficus also share a common ‘strangling’ growth habit, where the roots of seedlings grow down to the forest floor taking nutrients from the soil. Gradually the roots wrap around the host tree, widen, and slowly form a lattice-work that surrounds the host’s trunk and kills it. This often leaves the fig a distinctive ‘columnar tree’ with a hollow centre.

The Tropical Glasshouse also displays many economic crops including the famous Cavendish banana, sugar cane, black pepper, papaya, coffee, mahogany and everyone’s favourite, cocoa.

The glasshouse is kept humid by automatic misters and hand watering. On hot days the temperature can reach up to 40degrees and the air become completely saturated with water.

Screen 10 - Top Corridor

This space leads visitors up to the Temperate House, past the library and our moth trapping area. 

Every night of the year the Treborth BG “Robinson” moth trap is put outside, then the following day all the moths caught are recorded and released unharmed. Records were begun in 1986/87, stopped for a while, and then have been continuous from 1993 to the present, with only a few short breaks. This lengthy and meticulously maintained resource is unique for North Wales and is amongst the most comprehensive in the United Kingdom. All these records have now been put onto an Excel database, and used for scientific analysis.

Since 1986, a grand total of over 400 species of macromoths have been recorded, plus 71 species of micromoths. Large yellow underwings are sometimes present in immense numbers with a total of 50,600 (560 of them caught on the single night of 31st July/1 st August 1995, and almost as many of them on several other days). The heart &; dart moth is the second most numerous species (totalling 26,300).

Some clear trends are emerging: some species have increased over the years, while others have declined. Species such as dingy footman, august thorn, and yellow tail were rarely seen at Treborth before 2000 but are now caught in large numbers. Conversely, a few species which were found in abundance in earlier years, are now scarce: rustic shoulder knot and treble bar for example, both present in considerable numbers in 1986, decreased over the next few years, and have not been recorded at all since 2005. Many other species (such as large yellow underwing, heart and dart, common quaker and common marbled carpet) have peak and trough years, but no clear trend.

As daily meteorological records are also kept at Treborth, the daily, monthly, or yearly variations in moth records can be compared with climatic fluctuations: this remains to be done. Indeed, all these records have enormous potential for scientific analyses and interpretation.

Screens 11, 12 and 13 - Temperate House – Cacti and Succulent Collections

The succulent and cacti collection was established at Treborth in the mid-1970s. Various collections and odd plants were added over the years. In 1977 the raised arid bed was created – complete with the Cycas revoluta from the distinctly non-arid (it rained quite a lot when we were there!) Japanese island of Kyushu.

The extended cactus and succulent mound was constructed in the spring of 2008 using recycled compost (1:1 John Innes No. 1 and coarse sand) from an experiment at Pen-y-Ffridd Research Station on drought tolerance of chickpeas from Pakistan.

The cactus and succulent beds in the Temperate House are ranged geographically, starting on the left with African succulents, including those from Lesotho (in the far-left corner). Moving right, we come to the North American species. Most of the cacti in the original cactus bed near the back of the Temperate House were too big to move. Many of them are from South America. Smaller South American species are on the right of the main bed. The bed on the right is the exception to this geographic arrangement and is mainly for species that like partial shade.

Some cacti and succulents are confined to very small geographic areas – in some cases just one hillside – and are therefore at risk from habitat destruction, overgrazing and removal from habitat by private and commercial collectors. To reduce the latter problem, the international trade in cactus plants (but not seeds, except for cactus seeds collected in Mexico) is limited by CITES, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species.

This does not directly affect (or reflect) the availability of these species within the U.K. or other countries, nor does it reduce the first two problems. All species of cacti, aloes, succulent Euphorbias, cycads and orchids fall within appendix II of CITES, while some are in the more endangered category of appendix I. International movement of these is restricted to non-commercial (scientific and conservation) reasons and requires specific import and export licences.

The Mexican Government has imposed even tighter restrictions on the movement of its native cacti, to the extent that ex-situ conservation of some species in botanic gardens has been made more difficult. A number of species that are now common in cultivation have been ‘lost’ in the wild, and cultivated plants could be used to reintroduce them to their natural habitats – if those habitats could be protected.

There is a dilemma in that the demand for rare and newly-discovered species threatens survival in the wild, but tissue culture and commercial propagation may offer the best hope for the long term survival of some species. An example is the spiral aloe, Aloe polyphylla, from Lesotho. The seedlings of A. polyphylla at Treborth ARE an important resource and should in time generate new seeds.

Screen 14 - Carnivorous House 

Carnivorous plants are found in many different habitats and climates, growing in nutrient poor conditions where they can supplement their nutrient uptake with limited competition from other plants. These plants have evolved several techniques for trapping and digesting their pray. They produce mucus or oil-based glues which act as flypaper, slippery tubes or pots which stop the retreat of curious insects, and even traps which snap shut, like the famous Venus flytrap, trapping prey that walk along the surface of their adapted leaves.

The prey which these plants feast on is also quite varied. At one end of the scale the bladderworts (Utricularia) pick off nematodes and small aquatic invertebrates, while butterworts (Pinguicula) manage little more than fruit-flies and pollen. The pitcher plants, such as Sarracenia and Darlingtonia can handle altogether bigger prey such as flies and wasps, while the tropical pitcher plants, the Nepenthes, can reach giant proportions and have been found holding the remains of birds, lizards and rodents.

At Treborth we grow over 100 species and cultivars of these curious plants. Tropical specimens can be found in the Orchid and Tropical houses with plants from more temperate parts of the world, even from here in the UK, being grown in the Carnivorous Plant House.

Screens 15 and 16 - Chinese Medicinal Garden – Two Dragons Garden Project 

The Two Dragons Garden Project is a collaboration of Treborth Botanic Garden, the Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanic Garden in Yunnan and the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, with continuing funding from the Confucius Institute at Bangor University and the British Council. 

This initiative refers to the national symbols of China and Wales. The aim of this project has been to develop innovative training programmes for graduating students to gain work experience in botanic gardens in Wales and China, and to help them and others into gainful employment and career progression in the horticulture and environmental education fields.

The project has built relationships between training providers, employers and the host botanic gardens, and has created new curricula for vocational training in horticulture and botanic gardens education. The trainees have spent varying periods in one or other of the partner botanic gardens and have developed expertise that has then been applied in their workplaces.

The other component of this project is the development of a Chinese Medicinal Garden at Treborth Botanic Garden, designed to demonstrate aspects of the native flora of China and the ancient philosophy of plant use in traditional Chinese medicine over the last two thousand years which maintains its importance to the present day. The garden allows for scientific research into the biochemical basis of plant medicinal properties, and is also a contemplative space for relaxation, yoga and meditation workshops. 

Screen 17 - Wildlife Pond 

Our freshwater ponds are an important habitat here at the garden, especially being so close to the Menai Strait. The ponds are home to a diverse variety of wildlife, that breed and feed in the muddy margins, shallow open water and deeper pools. We have planted an herbaceous border in front and behind the pond to provide much needed shelter and protection. There are plenty of opportunities to help with pond maintenance throughout the year, if you fancy getting a pair of waders on! 

Screen 18 - Rock Garden and Wildflower Meadows

Our Rock Garden is a specialist collection of alpine and Mediterranean plants that require a sunny, free draining habitat. The Rock Garden is studded with mature, permanent specimens as well as dwarf bulbs and perennial herbaceous plants, between gravel, scree and large boulder outcrops. 

The Rock Garden looks over our wildflower meadows. The grassland meadows at the heart of Treborth Botanic Garden are “unimproved”, having remained uncultivated and unfertilised since Bangor University acquired it in the early 1960s, and documented as a hay meadow in 1840. Hence most of the 150 species found here are likely to be of native, local origin, though some non-natives have seeded themselves in from surrounding areas. Such meadows, traditionally used for hay, and rich in native species of wildflowers, fungi and insects, were once common in Britain, but are now disappearing at an alarming rate, 97% of them have been lost in less than 100 years.

Much of the Treborth grassland is mown regularly as a lawn, but within that are patches that are deliberately grown to allow the plants to flower and set seed. These plots have a one-off autumn cut and the material is removed for ‘green hay’. This material is taken to local sites to assist the creation of new meadows from seed that can be guaranteed to be of local provenance. The staff, students and volunteers at Treborth strim and rake the smaller plots, as they are not as accessible to large machinery. 

If not carefully managed, our meadows would soon be dominated by coarse grasses, and eventually revert to scrub. Helping to maintain the floral diversity are three annual species that are semi-parasitic, so tend to supress the growth of the coarser grasses: yellow rattle (Rhinanthus minor) known as the ‘meadow maker’, common eyebright (Euphrasia nemorosa) and red bartsia (Odontites verna).  

Meadows like the ones at Treborth have unparalleled plant diversity, providing the life support for a huge range of wildlife including fungi, bees, flies, beetles, spiders, moths, butterflies, reptiles, amphibians, small mammals, bats and birds. They are also an intrinsic part of our cultural heritage - rich in landscape character, farming, folklore and history. 

Screens 19 and 20 - Wales Coast Path and Woodland 

The woodlands at Treborth Botanic Garden cover approximately 16 hectares and occur at altitudes ranging from High Water Mark to 40 metres asl. The site is notable for the extent of shoreline (1.5k) which is directly fringed with high canopy forest. This maritime woodland habitat an uncommon landscape feature in Wales, with only 1% maritime woodland across the UK. 

There are at least eight distinct plant communities represented in the woodlands at Treborth including an ancient woodland mixed ash-oak SSSI, a fragment of ash woodland atop a limestone outcrop, 1950’s mixed conifer plantation, mixed oak-ash-sycamore woodland, calcareous birch-willow and high canopy mature oak with birch, ash and willow and an area of birch regeneration, including yew and whitebeam. There are also pockets of historically coppiced hazel and a mature coppiced lime avenue that runs through the centre of the woodland and dates back to the activities of Sir Joseph Paxton, a leading Victorian landscape designer.

Each of these woodland areas boasts unique understory field layers that have been managed for invasive species including rhododendron and cherry laurel.
With over 70,000 visitors a year, the woodland paths are accessible to all, with fossil tree trails and a mindfulness trail, as well as our Forest School site, Bog Garden and beehives. 

We warmly welcome schools and colleges to explore the Botanic Garden—a vibrant, living classroom ideal for learners of all ages. These visits offer an inspiring introduction to plant science, biodiversity, and environmental education. Activities can be tailored to suit your curriculum, and our Forest School sessions are also available for booking. Schedule your visit today and help spark a lifelong connection with nature in your students.

The Botanic Garden offers structured internships and placements for undergraduate and postgraduate students. These programs provide hands-on experience in plant science, conservation, and horticulture. Participants work alongside experienced professionals, gaining practical skills and insights that support their academic and career development in a rich, dynamic setting.

Current Bangor University students can get involved in volunteering opportunities at the Botanic Garden. This is a chance to connect with nature, gain real-world experience, and contribute to the garden’s educational and conservation goals. Volunteers develop valuable skills while playing a key role in promoting biodiversity and environmental stewardship.