Kathy H.
Yelp
I am kind of a tree lover, which really means I know nothing about them but I am fascinated. And yeah the Montreal botanical garden is much more spectacular because of oddity, rare plants, and a butterfly garden.
This Madrid one, I would still applaud at the number of fully grown old, adult trees they keep. It's a gigantic garden with trees from around the world -China, Peru, Africa. Trees are hard to keep together! How do you know if the tree roots aren't going to attack each other? And what about the bugs that invade tree to tree?
I didn't find the greenhouses particularly interesting though, they definitely weren't my highlight of the garden. The fields of tulips, I didn't find interesting either. Come on, really? I think the main attraction (which is the park of trees itself) much more spectacular. It's filled with various trees from different parts of the world, that's super super cool. Again, I am not you.
I found a pine cone and was like, "oh where did you drop from??"
I would describe this as a walk in a private park, where you can stroll slowly for 3€. Probably not worth most people's time.
To help you decide if you want to visit:
- it is 3€ per person, mornings are busy with school children
- if you're looking for a walk in the park, visit the Parque del Retiro during the weekday afternoon (it's empty and it's free)
- in fact, the indoor garden in Atocha train station would be much more spectacular than this one! that's free too
- if you're looking for a nature-kind-of-museum, unfortunately you will be disappointed here*
- if you actually like trees and nature, yes! this is for you
Now for the tree lovers that is I, I happily spent 2 hours walking around here hahaha. I am giving it 5 stars because I would actually visit again. It makes a nice, quiet walk. I was practising photography here! Also they had an arts exhibition in collaboration with Universidad Complutense de Madrid. This was the main reason I visited this garden. But the garden itself blew me away! Hi trees, I like you.
*The Jardín Botánico is more a park than a museum/educational venue. There are lots of amazing trees but if you have no interest, they all look the same. The signs only tell you the names and origin of the tree, nothing else. There are some (very few) descriptions on paper signs but they are ruined by rain and time, that even I didn't feel like reading this disgraceful yellowing paper.