The Royal Tasmanian Botanical Gardens (RTBG) is celebrating a milestone birthday hosting their first ever Royal visitor.
Prince Edward, Earl of Wessex, opened a new viewing platform in the garden's lily pad section to mark the garden's 200th anniversary.
He delivered a speech with a hint of humour which was warmly received by the crowd.
"There is one thing I should just warn you, is that the unveiling of a plaque is not necessarily the most exciting thing that has happened in your lives," he quipped.
"But what I want you to do is … pretend that it's very exciting. I want you to release 200 years of pent up excitement at this moment.
"I'll try and make this look as slick and as professional as possible."
RTBG chairwoman Beth Mathison said the Prince enjoyed his visit.
"He thought that this was quite a magnificent setting. He's very amusing, he's really engaging so he enjoyed his day and spoke to so many people," she said.
"The term royal was added to the gardens, I think it was in 1967, but the Queen herself did not actually come to the gardens, so yes it is our first royal visit."
She said the gardens had come a long way in their 200-year history.
"They were a farm that was set up by an ex-convict and then a few years later that was taken over by Governor Sorell and then a few years after that in 1818 it became a gardens open to the public," she said.
John Hangan and his wife established fruit trees, cereal crops and vegetable plots to grow food for the settlement on the River Derwent.
The gardens also has significant Indigenous heritage with archaeological excavations uncovering extensive shell middens and stone artefacts dating back thousands of years.
Today, the RTBG is a 14-hectare major tourist attraction, drawing more than 460,000 visitors annually.
It hosts about 100 weddings each year as well as concerts and a popular teddy bear picnic.
The RTBG is home to 19th century trees, two convict-built walls and the world's only Sub-Antarctic plant house, with flora from Macquarie Island — a 128 square kilometre environment between Tasmania and Antarctica.
It also features a heated wall constructed in 1829 to help foster the growing period of fruit trees and protect plants from frost.
Coal-fired furnaces sent hot air through brick channels, modelled on similar walls in England, but the method was abandoned when the local climate was found to be milder than anticipated.
The lily pad decks have been designed and constructed to commemorate the bicentenary, at a cost of $230,000.
The lily pond itself is historically significant as it was the original water reservoir of the gardens and there are century-old trees in the area.
It is one of the most photographed areas at the gardens.
