National Botanic Gardens of Ireland is one of the best botanical gardens I have visited so far. This botanical garden is nicely organized and having much varieties. I have visited this botanic garden during winter and later at spring. I thought I have seen enough of the garden. But returned back there during summer and found totally different flowers there.
I had a talk with a gardener there about the different flowers. According to them they use to replace the flowers each and every season. That means whenever you visit there you’ll see a different collection. May be an onetime visitor will not notice this, but a recurrent visitor like me will find it a new place every time.
This garden comprises with four green houses (they have different names I guess). Two are very big in size. One of the big greenhouse contains the cactus, orchid and tropical forest section. I have never seen too many different cactus and similar succulent plants at a time before. And few of them were with flowers during spring. The tropical section one was common to me as most of the plants are available from my country. The orchid section is really reach with collection.
Other big greenhouse holds small flowering plants from different part of the world. A large portion of the greenhouse contains different collection of Rhododendron flower. I have seen few plants from Australia and South Africa there. Most of those flowers I have seen there was my first time. Few of the plants are rare too.
The two small green houses are also nice. One is rich with the Bonsai plants and few other asian flowering plants. Other one is rich with very small flowers. Ireland uses to have a lot of rain throughout the years. You can easily spend your time inside the greenhouses during a rainy season. It happened with me once too. That day it was raining crazily. I have spent most of my time inside the greenhouses. If you are a flower lover then it should take 5-6 hours to observe all the flowers from the greenhouses. If you are a normal tourists then it should take 1-2 hours for you.
Ireland national botanic garden has a lot of lovely pathway where you can have your stroll. It has a lot of open lawns where you can sit with your family during the summer. Outdoor gardens are having trees mostly. You can expect to see the squirrel there. There are two types of squirrel in this botanic garden. Red squirrel is the rarest one and the Silver squirrel is the common one. People use to take popcorn and nuts there to feed the squirrels.
There is a small section inside the botanical garden where you can find the vegetable garden. You may see the cabbage, cauliflower, lettuce, etc plants. Around the garden I have seen the apple and pear trees.
The river Tolka flows through this Irish botanic garden. This is not a massive river but still walking beside this river should be interesting. This garden has a small lake inside where you may see few birds (duck, heron, etc). A small artificial fountain is available at the center of the garden. Few sculptures and statues are available around too.
How to go:
Several buses go beside this botanic garden. Dublin bus 83 and 83/A has a stoppage near the garden gate. Other two buses 7 and 9 have a stoppage at 2 minutes of walking distance from the garden. The good thing is that these two buses can be taken from the O’Connel street. From city center it takes around 15 minutes to reach the garden.
Where to stay:
People usually stay near the Dublin city center as it is very near from there. Also the hotels around the city center are cheaper and you have a wide range of options. You can check here for a list of hotels at Dublin. I didn’t stay at any of those as I live in Dublin.
Opening hours:
From the National botanic garden‘s website here is the opening hours for the garden:
Winter (2nd last Sunday of October to last Sunday in February)
— Monday to Friday 9 am – 4:30 pm
— Saturday, Sunday and Public Holidays 10 am – 4:30 pm
Summer (first Sunday in March to last Sunday of October)
— Monday to Friday 9 am – 5 pm
— Saturday, Sunday and Public Holidays 10 am – 6 pm
National Botanic Gardens,
County: Dublin,
Country: Ireland,
GPS coordinate (53.372175, -6.271351),
List of hotels at Dublin
This article has written by Lonely Traveler,
for the blog http://icwow.blogspot.com/
