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From 6 July 2006, a graphic version of the current edition is available at the Daily News Online web site.

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According to the National Museum and Art Gallery curator at the site, Nonofo Ramosesane, the contractor is doing the final touches on the nine-hectare garden whose cost is estimated at P8 million.

The garden, located in the Village opposite the Gaborone Club, will feature collections of living plants for scientific research, conservation, display and education.

Visitors would also have an opportunity to see historic monuments such as a house, which is more than 100 years old.

The historic house will be used as a show room when the project takes off later this year.

BOPA toured the place whose beauty has been enhanced by the outcrop of rocks, part of Notwane River to the east of the garden and indigenous plants and trees that were at the site before the project took off in 2003.

These include mmupudu, mohatolalentswe (fig tree) and motlhakola. There are various plants, most of them transplanted from different parts of Botswana.

Apparently most of the transplanted plants are doing quite well in their new environment. Of the seven hoodia plants whose seeds were planted in 2003, five are already a few centimetres long and are in good condition while two have perished.

Ramosesane said they were still investigating why the two died. Ramosesane told BOPA that the project is in two phases.

Phase one, which comprises external works such as fencing of the yard, construction of public ablution, cafeteria, car park and the renovation of the historic house is about to be completed.

He said that phase two would include setting up a birdhouse and a crocodile farm. Initially the second phase was to start a year after the first one had been completed, but Ramosesane could not confirm whether or not that is the case.

He said his office would continue to collect different species of plants and planting them at the garden.

Asked if dagga will also be kept at the first garden of its kind in Botswana,Ramosesane said they were actually in the process of sowing the medicinal plants seeds.

The garden also has a herbarium where research on plants specimen would be carried out.

The garden would also provide plant identification services.

The main objectives of the project, according to Ramosesane, is to conserve the diversity of Botswanas flora as specimens. The threatened and rare plants, he said, are to be conserved for future use.

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