Latest News

It’s a blooming marvel!

"That’s the great thing about nature – you just couldn’t make it up!"

It was with these words that National Botanic Garden of Wales senior horticulturist Jess Gould greeted the stunning sight of the first-ever flowering of the Puya plant in the Great Glasshouse.

Planted seven years ago near the time of the opening the Garden in 2000, the Chilean wonder is now in full flower.

“Every day brings more of those delicious, velvety jade-green petals out into the open,” said Jess. “The remarkable orange-coloured anthers give it an additional other-worldly look, too.”

She says the blooming will continue over the next week or so as the seven-foot-long Puya bud continues to flower.

A native of Chile, the Puya has long, narrow leaves which are edged with vicious, hooked thorns - protection again nibbling animals such as rabbits, sheep and llama. On the slopes of the Andes, where the plants flourish, if these grazing animals get too close they can become trapped in the Puya’s spikes and starve to death. As they rot, they become compost and feed the soil around the puya. This helps the plant to grow bigger.

Puya is a genus of over 160 species - related to the pineapple - all of which are to be found on the mountains and foothills of the Andes. The upright bud in the Great Glasshouse stands at 7ft tall. It is believed to Puya berteroniana, a species which grows on arid hillsides usually near the coasts in central Chile. It can survive a few degrees of frost.