The Royal Botanical Gardens at Peradeniya, Sri Lanka

The Royal Botanical Gardens at Peradeniya is a necessary part of any visiti program to almost all travel agencies. And though we were traveling by ourselves but having heard / read a lot of enthusiastic reviews I also decided to visit this garden. And have no regrets. The garden is very large, beautiful, well-groomed, with many not previously seen by me trees and plants.

 

 

This garden is among the finest tropical gardens in the world and one of the best in Asia. His story began in 1371 when King moved to Peradeniya with his court. Then, of course, the garden was small, just a place to rest and walk for the royal family. After the war with the Portuguese the garden was forgotten and neglected for a while, until 1821 when the British, these famous lovers of gardening, decided to revive the gardens of Peradeniya.

 

 

Now the garden has an area of ​​59 hectares. On its territory - about 10 000 different trees, many of which are more than 100 years old, nearly 4800 species of plants from around the world, of which 3770 species - flowering.

 

On the vast lawn, like an umbrella, there is a huge tree. This is Ficus Benjamin, one of the curiosities of the garden. It covers an area of ​​2500 square meters, the diameter of the crown is 55 meters. Thousand people can easily sit under it. The age of this tree is 140 years old, it was imported from Indonesia.

There are many palm trees in the garden - 200 species, and three palm avenues, where the palm trees reach a height of 21 meters. And there are also curious palms from the Seychelles, called "double coconut" (Lodoicea maldivica). The tree received its name due to the largest fruit in the world. It is very rare and expensive plant, the price of its fruit is about $ 100, and its weight is 30 kg. To ripen this nut needs 5 years.

 

You will see and the world's largest bamboo from Burma in the garden. Its height - 30-40 meters, diameter of its trunks - 20-25 cm. On average this bamboo grows 30 cm a day.

 

In the greenhouse of the garden there are many orchids (400 species and their hybrids), some of them are very small and some very large.

 

The garden was ful of people, local and tourists. Many pairs of sweethearts were hiding themselves from the eyes of the passers-by in secluded corners of the garden .

 

 

The place is simply amazing. I liked it very much. We spent there two hours and hand not enough time to see all the corners of the Gardens. So, if I ever decide to visit Sri Lanka again I will definately come to these Gardens one more time.

The Gardens are about 6 km from Kandy and are open daily from 7:30am till 4:30pm. Have plenty of time (at least 2-3 hours) to enjoy their beauty.