Explore the very first botanical garden in Botswana in this episode.
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Transcript:
Hello Listeners,
Today is January 8th, and this is A Garden a Day with Mædunbroc Gardens.
On today’s journey, we are going more than 5,000 miles south of yesterday’s garden. Yesterday, we explored the Orman Botanic Garden in Giza, Egypt. Today, we are staying on the continent of Africa and heading to Gaborone, Botswana to the very first botanical garden in that country — the National Botanical Garden.
The garden opened to the public in 2007 on seventeen acres and was created to protect the culture and natural heritage of Botswana. About 90% of the plants in the garden are indigenous to Botswana. There is a significant effort to collect and preserve all of the native plants of Botswana, including common weeds, with the understanding that even weeds have value.
Botswana is topographically flat with the Kalahari Desert making up approximately 70% of the country. Even with so much desert, the country still boasts six distinct ecological regions, and all six of those regions are represented at the National Botanic Garden with plants commonly found in those regions.
The Chobe Region includes the sausage tree (or Moporota) and Pod Mahogany (or Mukusi).
The Okavango and Salt Pans region is represented by the Wild Date Palm (or Tsaro) and Ilala Palm (or Mokolwane)
The Mophane Woodland Region is represented by the long-tail cassia (or Moepenepe) and the Mophane.
The North-eastern Kalahari Region is represented by mountain aloe (or Mokgwapha) and Umbrella thorn (or Mosunyana)
The Mashatu region is represented by the Nyala tree (or Motha) and the Fever tree (more-o-mosetlha).
The South-western Kalahari region is represented by hoodia and grasses.
The garden is managed under the Natural History Division of the Botswana National Museum.
As always, I’ve included links in the notes for you to read more about the National Botanical Garden of Botswana. I hope I’ve sparked some interest in seeing this and other beautiful gardens around the world.
Thank you for listening today.
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If all goes well, I will be right back here tomorrow. See you then!
To learn more about National Botanical Garden, follow these links:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Botanical_Garden_(Botswana)
https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/botswana-national-botanical-garden
https://gardensearch.bgci.org/garden/5822
https://tools.bgci.org/garden.php?id=2254
https://www.hellotravel.com/botswana/national-botanical-garden#google_vignette
https://evendo.com/locations/botswana/attraction/national-botanical-garden
https://www.sundaystandard.info/a-national-botanical-garden-is-launched-after-18-years-of-sowing/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Botswana_National_Museum
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