The Royal Botanical Gardens (RBG) is the largest botanical garden in Canada and a National Historic Site. The RBG has several gardens, an arboretum, and nature trails that are spread out between Burlington and Hamilton, Ontario. As a kid, I often visited the RBG with school and with my parents. Now that I’m older, I still love visiting the RBG and I can really appreciate all the different types of plants, trees, and flowers. Exploring the different areas of the RBG is a fun thing to do all year round. I hope you enjoy this guide to the Royal Botanical Gardens!
Please check https://www.rbg.ca/ for closures.
Hendrie Park
Hendrie Park is filled with several beautiful gardens. To name a few, there is a Rose garden, a woodland garden, a Lily collection, and a vegetable garden. There are also two unique gardens; a medieval garden, which has plants that would be used as medicine, food, and dye in medieval times, and a medicinal garden, where the plants are arranged by parts of the body that they treat medicinally.
Rock Garden
The Rock Garden is known for its beautiful visitor centre and Japanese-like garden. The garden has a small waterfall, several ponds, and varieties of plants and flowers.
In the winter of 2019, I visited the Winter Lights display at the Rock Garden. It was stunning!
Laking Garden
The Laking Garden is my favourite area of the Royal Botanical Gardens. Set on a terraced plain, this garden overlooks part of Lake Ontario. The main attractions of the Laking Garden are its Iris and Peony collections.
Arboretum
The Arboretum is a large park that focuses on a variety of beautiful trees, such as Lilac, Magnolia, Cherry Blossom, and Crab Apple. This is a perfect area of the RBG to have a picnic. From the Arboretum, there are several trails that lead to Cootes Paradise, a great place to hike.
Hendrie Valley
Hendrie Valley is a sanctuary centred on the Grindstone Creek Valley. There are several trails and it’s a very popular place to hike because you can feed birds and chipmunks. It’s one of my favourite places to go for a walk!
Cootes Paradise
Established in 1927 for its significance as a migratory bird stopover, Cootes Paradise is the RBG’s largest and most diverse sanctuary. There are tons of different trails, you could spend a whole day hiking here!
I hope you enjoyed my guide to the Royal Botanical Gardens in Ontario!
More info on the Royal Botanical Gardens: https://www.rbg.ca/
To read my blog post, “5 Places to See Cherry Blossoms in Ontario,” click here.
To read my blog post, “10 Great Hiking Spots in Southern Ontario,” click here.
