13
votes
I love bioparks
I recently visited Albuquerque and spent almost a full day at their botanical gardens. It was awesome and made realize how much I love bioparks.
Of all the attractions a city may have, they always delight and never leave me conflicted like I feel at zoos and aquariums.
So I ask the people of Tides: where are the best bio parks and what makes them great?
Longwood Gardens about 45 minutes from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania is the one I am familiar with. It’s supposedly highly regarded, but I don’t really know any others besides a trip to the New York Botanical Gardens during the holidays once which was not an ideal time to visit and enjoy its splendor. It’s been awhile since I’ve been to LG but from my recollection I loved how all the different climates were replicated, giving each room a different sort of plant vibe. The architecture and landscaping is also quite stunning, making for amazing photographs without much difficulty.
The Singapore Botanic Gardens (official site / wiki) are really great and recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It's a beautiful garden, clean and well maintained, with an incredible diversity of plants and environments. There are several large fields for playing and picnicking, one of which has a symphony stage in the middle of a pond where they often perform free concerts. Of particular note is the National Orchid Garden within the main gardens, containing over 1,500 species and 3,000 hybrids on display.
Also in Singapore is the Gardens by the Bay (official site / wiki) located along the waterfront. Large outdoor gardens, events and performances, food, and two huge conservatories - the "Cloud Forest" modeling a tropical mountain with a 35' waterfall and several levels of bridge walkways, and the "Flower Dome" with a range of habitats and a central section with a frequently changing whimsical theme.
I'd add that the Botanic Gardens are massive. Took me a full day to cover the entire thing by power walking, will likely need multiple days for a leisurely stroll.
There's an indoor area at the Orchid Garden that's a showcase of plants that live in higher altitudes, it's kept very cold and a great respite from the outdoor humidity.
The Garden of the Gods in Colorado Springs comes to mind first. It's a pretty large area and I've only seen part of it, and I've wanted to go back ever since. It's full of rock formations and native plants, with criss-crossing trails everywhere, and it's good for short visits as you pass through (like I did) or longer explorations.
Closer to me, one of the Kansas City suburbs has a beautiful Arboretum and Botanical Garden. My wife and I have been there several times (always on free admission days) and enjoyed it every time - it's where I proposed! The American midwest is full of natural areas that get overlooked in favor of mountains and coasts, and I think that's a shame.
The botanical garden in Golden Gate Park in SF is very lovely. To be honest though it’s slightly diminished by the fact that it’s in an already gorgeous park with tons of interesting (manmade) nature. I highly recommend both, but most of the time I just prefer to wander the park.
All of Table Mountain in Cape Town is effectively a giant Bio Park. If you just want to have a nice day trip, Kirstenbosch Botanical Garden is tucked into the North-Western part of the mountain facing away from the sea so it's pretty sheltered and not too bad when the wind picks up. There's a ton of endangered plants, a bonsai garden, cultural and medicinal garden, a canopy trail. And it's built in a way where the landscape gradually morphs into fully indigenous fynbos as you get closer to the mountain.
If you go further south, there's Table Mountain National Park which is more hardcore multi-day hikes and camping. But there is the Cape Point area where you can climb a mountain towards a lighthouse and wander towards the narrowest cliff-point in high winds. Great spot for bird watching, tracking down rare plants and potentially falling to your death.
But seriously, Cape Town is just a magical space for bio-tourisim. You can do all the easy tourist sites, a good week of hiking or cycle tours. You could also find a lot of landscapes from the live action One-Piece if that's you thing.
( I strongly recommend doing the hikes or biking with a local group. Partly for security, but mostly because some of these spots can get deceptively treacherous with a constant risk of wildfires, wind and mist/fog.)
If you ever make your way to Australia, one of my favorites is the Children's Garden, attached to the Royal Botanic Gardens in Melbourne. It was designed as a playground, except that the plants themselves serve as the playground equipment. Although it's for kids, it's still really interesting for adults because everything is planted around the idea of exploring freely and getting lost in a surreal environment. The rest of the botanical garden is great, too, but the Children's Garden is my favorite.
It's been such a success that it's inspired a lot of other places in Australia to incorporate plants more heavily in their playgrounds. For example, a small town near me designed a densely forested public playground and waterpark, designed around winding trails and 'rooms' to discover. Even though it's very popular (with both kids and adults), it still feels really private and wild due to the dense planting.
My very favorite garden I've ever visited is the botanical garden in San Francisco, though.
As it happens, I'll be visiting the Fredrick Meijer Gardens and Sculptural Park this coming weekend. I haven't been to this one yet, and I'm quite looking forward to it since it's the real beginning of spring here. Sadly, it's one of those privately funded vanity projects of the morbidly wealthy, which also means substantial admission charges ($25+ USD for entry).
If you haven't seen the Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden in Coral Gables (near Miami), Florida, it's a great day trip. There's a broad selection of specimens across multiple tropical biomes (aquatic, desert, etc.), including cycads, orchids, and spectacular rarities like the Jade Vine. The vistas are well designed for viewing at distance, as ecological vignettes, and in close view of individual plants. If you've got kids, the butterfly garden will enchant them, and there's a reasonably priced restaurant on the grounds. At various times of the year, local exotic tropical fruits are available for sale, there's a Mango Festival with hundreds of varieties. Even the gift shop has some extraordinary finds. There's always something in bloom, the placement of specimens is elegant, there are permanent and rotating sculpture installations. Even in the hottest months, shady jungle grottoes make it tolerable.
If you're visiting Nashville, Tennessee, Cheekwood Estate and Gardens has lovely landscape architecture with well-chosen sculpture installations, both classical and modern. The last time I was there, the museum and art gallery on the grounds was a perfect respite from a rainy day.