Royal Botanic Garden, Kew graduates get their hands dirty at Botanical Beats

Bangor’s number-one summer music event, where local bands, artists and exhibitors from local wildlife organisations come together at Bangor University’s Botanic Garden at Treborth in a feel-good extravaganza of music, art and wildlife! The combination of music festival and biodiversity event is probably the only one of its kind! We even have our own house band! This year we are getting some very special volunteers from Royal Botanic Garden Kew!

Botanical Beats takes place from 1pm on Sunday the 5th of June, at Treborth Botanic Garden. Entry costs £6 at the gate (kids are free), and most activities are free once you are in. A free shuttle bus will run from Bangor train station to the Garden, so getting there couldn’t be easier. For more information, or to volunteer go to www.botanicalbeats.org.uk.

Each year Treborth Botanic Garden hosts a group of students from Kew as part of their 3 year Horticultural Diploma. Treborth’s Curator and Bangor University Lecturer, Nigel Brown spends the week delighting and educating the Kew visitors with the rich and diverse botanical and geological wealth that north Wales has to offer including a trip to the magnificent Ogwen valley following in the footsteps of Charles Darwin. A group of Kew graduates are visiting, this time, to pitch in over the weekend of Botanical Beats to make the day one to remember.

Jess, a Kew graduate, said: ‘We can't wait, a couple of us were talking about it the other day. Nigel was definitely the best lecturer on the course for me’

Growing in confidence since its humble beginnings, this annual event now features an eclectic range of artists from across north Wales and beyond, over three solar powered stages.

“This year the event is linking with Wales Biodiversity Week ‘pledge4nature’ and celebrating UN Year of the Forests. Local wildlife and nature organisations will be informing and amazing us with up-close activities and stalls encouraging interaction with creatures and plant life from mini beasts to mammals, fly-eating plants to fossil trees. Arts and craft activities aimed to entertain both young and old with paper-making and weaving to circus skills and Morris dancing, will be accompanied by the tunes wafting over from the various live stages. For the past two years we have been partners with BBC Springwatch’s Wild Day Out, “explains Rachel Bolt a student at Bangor University and this year’s chairman of the Students for Treborth Action Group (STAG)

Botanical Beats is organised by STAG and the Friends of Treborth Botanic Garden (FTBG) as a fundraiser for projects in the University’s Botanic Garden. Money raised at previous events has paid for a spectacular new wildlife-pond, improving the energy efficiency of the buildings, expanding the Garden’s plant collection, and the purchase of a new garden tractor. It is hoped that the proceeds from this year’s event will pay for a rainwater harvesting system to further reduce our environmental impact, and a new greenhouse housing a collection of ferns.

Publication date: 31 May 2011