The Retreat Garden

The Retreat was the home of Arthur and Margaret Langlois, who spent decades from the 1920s collecting palms from around the world and planting them on eleven acres in the middle of what is now Nassau. The result is around a hundred and seventy species, a great many of them rare and some no longer common in the wild, in a mature closed-canopy garden that is startlingly quiet given the traffic outside. The Langlois left it to the Bahamas National Trust in 1985 and it is now the Trust's headquarters. Native coppice woodland covers part of the site and orchids are grown in a shade house.

What you actually see

• The palm collection - around a hundred and seventy species under one canopy.
• The native coppice - remnant Bahamian woodland on part of the site.
• The orchid house - the shade house collection.
• The quiet - closed canopy in the middle of the city.

When to go

Year-round; open weekdays with limited hours and guided tours at set times. Mornings are cool and best for birds. It is small and takes about ninety minutes.

Honest expectations

Opening hours are limited to weekdays and short, which catches out visitors. Entry is by guided tour at set times rather than free wandering. Hurricane damage has taken out mature specimens over the years and replacements take decades. It is a plant collection rather than a designed garden, so it is more interesting to gardeners than to general visitors.

Nearby

Downtown Nassau is ten minutes; Cable Beach is fifteen minutes west.