Kyoto Botanical Garden

Kyoto City, next to the Kamo River is the Kyoto Botanical Garden. The entrance fee is 200 yen, and once one enters the facility the park encompasses the garden covering the whole width of one's field of view and the blue sky stretches above. The main road leads past a playground and a gorilla statue and then to a conservatory with a lily pad pond in front. The admission fee for the conservatory is another 200 yen and once inside one enters the room to the left and follows the road.

The first room is for wet tropical plants. The road curves around the room and splits a small pond in half. The pond has small fish and some frogs. The surrounding plants stretch up to the ceiling of the greenhouse. With so many flowers, leaves and bark to look at one may take their time.

In the middle of the jungle room is a tunnel and in that tunnel are a few aquariums lined up. They contain East Asia, African and other shore environments. In these aquariums are also snails, shrimp, axolotl and some more.

The wet tropics garden covers the spans of the south part of the conservatory and it's easy to get the mind absorbed into the vegetation. The road eventually twists and turns into the useful tropical plants garden. Daylight illuminates the room through the windows and casts plant shadows onto the ground. In this room are cacao, coffee among other plants.

After that you continue into the North part of the greenhouse. The next room is the air-conditioned garden. When the sun drops low into the sky it illuminates the small insects flying that dance around. The air conditioner above hum and a mist gently descend to which you can really feel that you're in another environment.

After that you'll enter the dry tropics garden. The air humidity is low and cactus grow from the dry soil. The north wall has a painting that has run dirty with time. What location does that painting portray?.. It looks like it could be the desert in Arizona.

After the desert you'll enter the night garden. These plants are awake at night and which is why the room they are in is dark. There is a clock on the wall which shows the simulated time of the plant.

After that you'll exit into the Alpine garden. In there are small, gently colored flowers and pine trees. From here you can also enter the courtyard. In the court yard are some metal chairs and pine trees that cast a shadow.

The last room of the conservatory is the orchid and bromeliad garden. Once again the road twists and turns around the room and around the corner is a small waterfall. A girl stopped in the middle of the road and witnessed a lizard that came out of the vegetation, ripped apart a cockroach and then dragged it back into the vegetation. Lastly you will pass some orchards next to the exit before you're back in the entrance of the conservatory.

North of the conservatory is a cherry tree garden. The small, hard cherries have by the end of May only become a gentle red color. If one follows the road west they'll find a small bonsai exhibition. The bonsai trees are neatly rowed up on tables and an approach with a macro lens reveals some closer details.

North of the bonsai exhibition is the perennial garden. There is a ditch with water between the flowers and damselflies laid eggs in between the lily pads. A woman passed by in the garden with clothes that matched the colors of the flowers well. Meanwhile a hornet flew into the garden and landed on a nearby handrail.

To the East (about the middle of the North half of the garden) is Nakaragi Shrine. To the West, North and East side of the shrine it is surrounded by ponds, and further surrounding everything are different types of grooves which are connected with cozy bridges. A man threw in feed for the catfish, meanwhile a woman sat in one of the pavilions and painted the landscape. Water striders ran around on the water surface with their shadows cast onto the bottom of the pond. The forest shade danced gently on the ground and a watermill to the North spun slowly.

In the south end of the botanical garden is a rose garden. The rose garden has a French touch to it. There are statues of western women in the garden and a duck relaxed in front of a fountain. As the sun slowly set a gardener trimmed a red rose bush and the visitors took a few last pictures of the flowers.

That is Kyoto Botanical Garden. The spacious garden is quiet and you may sit by the pond or in the conservatory and study or paint if you like to. Unfortunately, not all places of the garden were captured for the current album. For example, the plum garden and the bamboo garden were left out. If you like plants and are in Kyoto then Kyoto Botanical Garden is worth a visit.