His Excellency Lyonpo (Dr.) Pema Gyamtsho, Minister for Agriculture and Forests, made a brief visit to the Royal Botanical Garden, Serbithang on 7th June, 2012 and took a tour of the recently‘re-designed’ rock garden and the orchidarium. He was accompanied by the Heads of the Departments of the Ministry of Agriculture and Forests.
The rock garden was redesigned and redeveloped with the technical and partial financial support of Mr. Thomas Hoijer, while the expansion of the orchid collection (upto 265 species) and display in the orchidarium was technically supported by Mr. Stig Dalstrom. Both these Swedish gentlemen have been volunteering at the National Biodiversity Centre to provide their technical expertise and hands-on assistance in the development of the Botanical garden and Orchid taxonomy and management capacity for over four years now.
The Botanical garden was established in 1999 as a tribute to His Majesty the 4th Druk Gyalpo’s 25 years of golden reign. It has blossomed in twelve years from a ‘bare patch of land’ into one of the most popular ‘getaways’ for Thimphu locals as well as tourists. The Garden is poised to increase the native floral collection for the purpose of ex situ conservation as well as to inculcate a love for our native flora amongst the Bhutanese; it has also initiated efforts to rescue flora from vulnerable environments.
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