A free, seven-days-a-week botanic garden three kilometres from Dublin's centre, famed for its restored Victorian wrought-iron glasshouses. Over 15,000 plant species and cultivars are spread across glasshouses, borders, a rock garden and riverside grounds.
Richard Turner's Curvilinear Range and the Great Palm House are the jewel in the gardens' crown, both winners of an award for excellence in conservation architecture. These exquisitely restored Victorian wrought-iron houses shelter exotic plants and are free to walk through.
Over 15,000 plant species and cultivars fill the themed beds, long herbaceous borders and rock garden, with the rose garden across the river Tolka. The gardens are also home to more than 300 endangered plant species, six of them extinct in the wild.
Sundials, the 1894 bandstand, Ninian Niven's chaintent pergola and sculptures including Socrates, Craobh and '?What is Life?' hide along the paths. Among them is a replica Viking Age house built in 2014, open to school groups and on guided tours.
Guided tours take place daily and booking is essential. They cost €5 per person and are free on Sundays; guides can also open the replica Viking House, which is otherwise closed to casual visitors.
The Garden Restaurant, in the same building as the Visitor Centre, serves hot and cold drinks, snacks, cakes and full hot lunches with a view over the gardens, open 9am-4.30pm weekdays and 10am-5pm at weekends. A Courtyard Cafe offers extra seating in the Visitor Centre.
Reception, the ticket desk for guided tours, a bookshop, exhibition gallery, lecture theatre and toilets are all in the Visitor Centre, which has a lift. Wheelchairs can be borrowed there on a first-come, first-served basis.
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