Hangzhou Botanical Garden

Hangzhou Botanical Garden

Hangzhou Botanical Garden Facts

Hangzhou Botanical Garden, built in 1965 at the foot of Jade Spring Hill, is a recreational area for kids and adults, as well as a research base dedicated to the cultivation of plants, and protecting and studying the environment. 

Chinese Name: 杭州植物园

Type: Botanical Garden; Plants

Address: Hangzhou City, Zhejiang Province

Best Seasons: All year round; Spring and autumn best.

Recommended Visiting Hours: about 2-3 hours

Opening Hours: 7:00 - 17:30

Ticket:CNY 10 for adults; CNY 5 for children between 1.2 - 1.5 meters (3.9 and 4.9 feet); Free for children below 1.2 meters.

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Why is Hangzhou Botanical Garden So Special?

Hangzhou Botanical Garden has wonderful scenery and an excellent environment. It is beautiful, with decorative architecture including pavilions and kiosks. Verdant trees, colorful and lovely flowers, and extremely fresh air seem to bring people into a world full of the pleasure of natural beauty.

Brief Introduction of Hangzhou Botanical Garden

Located in the northwest of West Lake, Hangzhou Botanical Garden is filled with green plants, just like a huge open-air botanical museum. Visitors often come here to enjoy the landscape, take photos and breathe fresh air during the holidays. In early spring during the flower show of plum blossoms, the botanical garden welcomes the most visitors. Because of the warm and moist weather of Hangzhou, the garden scenery appears variously in the four seasons.

It is divided into several sections according to the different varieties of plants. For instance, there is an azalea garden and a peach garden for spring sightseeing; in summer, leagues of bamboo forests flourish at the northeastern corner of the garden; in autumn, there are osmanthus and crepe myrtle gardens and a chrysanthemum exhibition; in winter, there are wintersweets and camellias. Over a thousand varieties of herbal plants are growing at the Baicao (hundred herbs) Garden.

What To Do in Hangzhou Botanical Garden

To experience the Hangzhou Botanical Garden fully, visitors should divide their time between the two sections of the garden. These include the research section and the pleasure garden section. The research section is mainly where the cultivation of plants is studied; this section attracts academic visitors and those who want to learn more about planting and gardening. It is also an education place for kids to visit. The other section, on the other hand, is the pleasure garden, which offers rows upon rows of lush greenery for guests to take pleasure in. 
 
Due to the large numbers of plants in the garden, the pleasure garden is further divided into different smaller gardens depending on the type of plants they hold. These include the Botany Classification Garden, the Botany Appreciation Garden, the Bamboo Garden, the Garden of Economic Plants, the Plant Resources Museum, and the Medicinal Garden.

Main Attractions of Hangzhou Botanical Garden

Lingfeng Tanmei

The Botany Appreciation Garden is most notable of all due to the Lingfeng Tanmei, an area that consist of more than 5,000 plum trees standing upright. This offers a wonderful sight in the winter when the plum trees stretch all the way up. 

Bamboo Garden

The Bamboo Garden is another interesting part of the Hangzhou Botanical Garden as it features a special type of bamboo called the Damaozhu. This bamboo variant grows very fast; it can reach 1 meter overnight. Because of this, the Bamboo Garden usually boasts of bamboos that grow as tall as three-storey buildings. 

Garden of Economic Plants

The Garden of Economic Plants feature plants that can be used to make fiber, medicine, industrial materials, and herbs and spices. 

Medicinal Garden

The Medicinal Garden, also known as Garden of A Hundred Herbs or Baicao Yuan, offers 1,200 medicinal herbs some of which are native only to Hangzhou. 
 
Also, guests are encouraged to watch out for some special types of flowers, such as the Yulan trees (which are beautiful in spring), the lotus, the hammock, the pines, the bamboos, and sweet-scented osmanthus. The magnolia, the feature maple, the Japanese cherry, the camphor, the pointy cypress, and the dragon cypress trees can all also be found in the garden. 

Recommended Tour Packages

Best Seasons to Visit Hangzhou

  • Many people in China believe that spring and autumn are the two best seasons to visit Hangzhou, specially late March-May and September-mid November.
  • In these seasons, temperature is warm but not hot. Daytime temperature ranges from mid 10s to mid 20s centigrade, and night time temperature ranges from low 10s to low 20s.
  • Spring is the best season to visit the West Lake because all kinds of flowers are blossoming that time. In order: plum blossom, peach blossom, and cherry blossom.
  • Autumn is also very nice and my favorite because of the yellow and red leaves.
  • However, I suggest avoiding the last week of September and the first 2 weeks of October because that’s when the city becomes packed with tourists from the golden week holidays.

How to get to Hangzhou Botanical Garden

Travel with ChinaDragonTours (top recommended)

If you want to get out of the traffic and hassle of navigation, you can book a private tour package that includes visiting, dining and transfer from us. Our local guide and driver will escort you to Hangzhou Botanical Garden in the fastest and most convenient way and take care of all the details. You just have to focus on the visiting.

Independent Traveler

Take bus 7, 15, 27, 28, 82, 87, 103, 103b, 807, j13, or jy6 and get off at Zhiwuyuan (Botanical Garden) Station.

Useful Travel Tips

  1. Avoid visiting during school holidays and Golden Week in October as there will be large numbers of local tourists.
  2. Some entertainment facilities in Hangzhou Botanical Garden offer tourists a chance to relax to their hearts content. No matter what season it is, the garden will give tourists endless pleasure. The beautiful Yulan trees in spring, the leisure hours spent viewing the lotus or on the hammock forest in summer, the fragrance of sweet-scented-osmanthus in autumn, the pines and bamboos which are still green and vigorous in winter add great pleasure to any visit here.

Nearby Attractions

Edited by Bella Ren/任新月