Garden sights in Caribbean Islands

1. El Jardín de Caridad

   • Viñales, Cuba
   • Sights › Garden

   Just opposite the Servi-Cupet gas station as the road swings north out of town, you'll spot an outlandish, vine-choked gate beckoning you in. This is the entrance to a sprawling garden almost a century in the making. Cascades of orchids bloom alongside plastic doll heads, thickets of orange lilies grow in soft groves and turkeys run amok. Knock on the door of the Little-Red-Riding-Hood cottage and one of the elderly owners will probably show you around.

   reviewed

   • 0
   • 0

2. La Jungla de Jones

   • Cuba
   • Sights › Garden

   Situated 6km west of La Fe in the direction of Hotel Colony, this is a botanical garden containing more than 80 tree varieties. Bisected by shaded trails and punctuated by a cornucopia of cacti and mangoes, this expansive garden was established by two American botanists, Helen and Harris Jones, in 1902. The highlight is the aptly named Bamboo Cathedral, an enclosed space surrounded by huge clumps of craning bamboo that only a few strands of sunlight manage to penetrate.

   reviewed

   • 0
   • 0

3. Jardín de los Helechos

   • Santiago De Cuba, Cuba
   • Sights › Garden

   Two kilometers from downtown Santiago de Cuba on the road to El Caney, the peaceful Jardín de los Helechos is a lush haven of 350 types of ferns and 90 types of orchids that started life in 1976 as the private collection of santiagüero Manuel Caluff. In 1984 Caluff donated his collection of 1000-plus plants to the Academia de Ciencias de Cuba (Cuban Academy of Science), which continues to keep the 3000-sq-meter garden in psychedelic bloom (the best time for orchids is November to January). The center of the garden has an inviting dense copse-cum-sanctuary dotted with benches.

   Bus 5 (20 centavos) from Plaza de Marte in central Santiago passes this way, or you can hire a…

   reviewed

   • 2
   • 0