Lankester Botanical Garden

Charles Lankester, an English coffee planter and amateur botanist, began collecting orchids at his property near Cartago in the early twentieth century, and the garden he assembled passed to the University of Costa Rica in 1973 and has since become a research centre as well as a public garden. The collection holds several thousand orchid taxa, with the greatest number in flower between February and May, along with bromeliads, aroids, palms, cacti, bamboo and a Japanese garden, across around ten hectares at eighteen hundred metres in the Cartago valley. Glasshouses hold the more delicate species. The garden publishes taxonomic research and describes new species regularly.

What you actually see

• The orchid collection - the thousands of taxa, at their peak in spring.
• The glasshouses - the delicate species under cover.
• Bromeliads and aroids - the other epiphyte collections.
• The Japanese garden - the laid-out section within the grounds.

When to go

February to May for the main orchid flowering, which is the reason to time a visit; the garden is open year round and other collections carry it. Mornings are best before afternoon cloud and rain.

Honest expectations

Orchid flowering is seasonal and outside the peak many plants are not in bloom. The garden is modest in size. The Cartago valley is often cloudy and wet in the afternoon. Labelling depth varies.

Nearby

Cartago lies west; Irazu volcano is north.