Sri Lanka's five Botanical Gardens siutated in Peradeniya, Hakgala, Gampaha, Avissawella and Hambantota has had nearly 935,000 local and 180,000 foreign visitors within the last six months.
Royal Botanical Garden, Peradeniya is one of the best botanical gardens in Sri Lanka, and one of the most beautiful in Asia. It is located just 6 km from Kandy, the second largest city in Sri Lanka. The botanical garden is huge & well-organized. It is renowned for the collection of Orchid varieties, and has more than 300 varieties of Orchids, spices, medicinal plants and palms trees attach it is the National Herbarium. Total land mass of the botanical garden is 147 acres; it is managed by the Division of National Botanic Gardens of the Department of Agriculture.
Hakgala Botanical Garden is the second largest garden in Sri Lanka. The garden is contiguous to Hakgala Strict Nature Reserve. It ss situated on the Nuwara Eliya-Badulla main road, 16 km from Nuwara Eliya. There are over 10,000 species of flora planted here and during the Spring season in Nuwara Eliya thousands of visitors come to see the blooms. Number of annual visitors is around 500,000. The garden is famous for number of species of Orchids and Roses.
Henarathgoda Botanical Garden, is always on the must see list of the tourists and for very good reasons. This botanical garden is on comparatively low lying areas compared to other botanical gardens in the island. Henarathgoda Botanical Garden is located around thirty kilometres north-west of Colombo, near Gampaha off Colombo-Kandy road. The variety of trees in this botanical garden is simply incredible and some of the trees are from faraway places like Brazil. Every tropical tree has been represented; or rather trees are there from every corner of the tropical world. It is really something to see a tree from as far away place as Brazil, especially if the tree is something as unusual as the Para rubber tree.
The new Mirijjawila Dry Zone Botanical Garden built on 300 acres of land at Mirijjawila in Hambantota district is the biggest botanical garden in Sri Lanka.. It is located on the Colombo-Kataragama main road. Its primary objectives are to protect plants in the dry zone, dry-zone landscape improvement, promotion of the herbal industry, education and training on botany and floriculture, and promotion of eco-tourism. Three water tanks named Kohombagas wewa, Malitthangas wewa and demataththa wewa, are constructed in the garden premises to preserve the moisture of the land. . Coming to its uniqueness, the Mirijjawila dry-zone botanical garden is the first 100 percent locally-designed botanical garden in Sri Lanka, and the largest.
Seetawaka Botanical Garden is situated on the Puwakpitiya-Thummodara main road, at Illukowita, adjacent to the Indikada Mukalana Forest Reserve at Avissawella.The 32 ha (79 acres) garden has a cool temperate climate. The total land area of the garden is 105 acres (42 ha).
