Things to do / Travel Guide
Texas is home to some famous botanical gardens. Each of them has its own character, and specialize to different extents in the flora of Texas.
Moody Gardens
Moody Gardens is as much a family tourist destination as it is a botanical garden. Located in Galveston and owned by the city, Moody Gardens is an ultra-modern complex, with three huge pyramids. One is an aquarium, one is a fully enclosed jungle habitat, and the other is a museum with exhibits and educational films, including an IMAX theater. There is also a complete artificial beach.
Corpus Christi Botanical Gardens and Nature Center
Located in Corpus Christi, this 180-acre site has an orchid house, plumeria collection, sensory garden, hibiscus garden, arid garden, rose garden, water garden, and hummingbird garden.
There are many trails at the Corpus Christi Botanical Gardens and Nature Center that allow visitors to see a protected natural wetland and native habitat. There is the shaded Bird and Butterfly Trail, Birding Tower, Palapa Grande on Gator Lake, Wetlands Awareness Boardwalk, and the Oso Creek Loop Trail. The whole area is covered year-round with exotic birds, and is part of the Texas Coastal Birding Trail, a long winding route that stretches across the entire Gulf Coast where bird watchers can see 75% of the bird species in Texas. Corpus Christi, incidentally, has been named the “Birdiest City in the United States.”
Zilker Botanical Garden
Zilker Botanical Garden in Austin is owned by the city and offers 31 acres of gardens, such as a cactus and succulent garden, an herb and fragrance garden, and a butterfly trail and garden. There are two however, that are distinctively unique.
One of the most famous gardens is the Hartman Prehistoric Garden, established in 1992 in order to preserve tracks found in the park made by dinosaurs and an ancient giant turtle. The park features plants that existed in abundance during the time of the dinosaurs.
Another featured garden is the Isamu Taniguchi Oriental Garden, which overlooks Austin. It was built in 1969. Isamu Taniguchi and his family emigrated from Japan and came to the U.S. in 1915, and were interned during World War II in relocation camps for the Japanese. He remained in Texas after the war and for the rest of his life. After he retired, in 1967, he offered to build a garden as a gift to the city of Austin as a way of saying “thank you” for his sons' education at the University of Texas in Austin. Working with donated plants from local nurseries, Taniguchi worked over a period of 18 months with only one assistant at a time, upon land given to him by the city, to complete his gift. In those 18 months, he managed to transform three acres of rocky hillside into a sensuous Japanese garden with koi ponds and even a teahouse.
Houston, Austin, San Antonio, Padre Island and Southeastern Texas
Botanical-Gardens
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