St George Village Botanical Gardens — Attraction in Grove Place

Such a beautiful place with a sad colonial history. The exotic and unusual trees and plantings were extraordinary, worth spending time enjoying the diversity and thoughtful arrangement of plant life among the crumbling foundations and mills. Historically, this is a real treasure. One can appreciate the beauty of the respectful preservation efforts and tasteful restorations, while being circumspect about the property’s oppressive past.

Astounding collection of remarkable trees, including one of the oldest kapok trees on the island and a stunning baobab, as well as banyan and other fascinating arboreal specimens. If you are a tree fanatic, this is your place. As a bonus, fruit bats live in the overseer’s old house and pollinate the gardens, which may be a kind of karmic justice.

Be sure to go early- it gets hot walking around, even though there is a lot of shaded areas. Also, bring water! Once you walk away from the front, there is not place else in the property to get a drink, and you will want one! Plan to...

Wow! What a beautiful traverse through a deeply rich historical site. The flora is amazing, most of the plant life with little plaques informing of the genus and regions they're native to. Seeing the hundreds of years old architecture and learning the history of the plantation and the people affected by the industry, it's powerful to actually stand there on the site, see the graves, the housing, the conditions, compared to just reading about it back in school. The staff here are incredibly warm, welcoming, and knowledgeable about the gardens. The gift shop is also a delight, full of local treasures. Hiking through the rain forest is a must. Luckily we didn't see any jaguars, though that would've been pretty cool. Anyways, I highly recommend spending a couple hours at the gardens, alone or with...

My daughter and I visited mid Sunday last July. We parked in the free on site lot and entered through the gift shop where we were immediately granted admission as our reciprocal botanical garden membership made for free entry.

The gift shop clerk gave us a map and shared his thoughts on the best ways to get around. There were about 15-20 attractions and we made it our goal to visit all before the gardens closed at 4pm, which took a little over two hours to do. At one point we discovered that in 1972 Lakeside Manufacturing Inc., of our hometown Milwaukee, WI, donated seven acres of land to the gardens!

As we trekked through the different exhibits, the sounds of leaves dancing to the tune of singing birds served as our journey’s soundtrack, adding to the peaceful adventure.

If I could, I...