Baldha Garden Dhaka

Cybele part of Baldah garden

Sankhanidhi pond

Students of Botany, examining plants

Visitors

Udoypadda plant in the middle

Green house

Sundial
Baldha Garden: The philanthropic naturalist landlord of the Baldah estate, Narendra Narayan Roy Chaudhury, established a miniature botanical garden in Narinda, near Christian Cemetery, having a rich and rare collection of plants from 50 countries in 1909. It took more than three decades to give a full shape to this garden. The garden housed about 15,000 plants covering more than 600 species of around 335 genera belonging to 87 families. Among those, the famous Baobab plant (Adansonia digitata) was collected from Africa and adapted in this garden. There are the famous camellias that inspired poet Rabindranath Tagore to compose his famous poem 'Camelia' during his visit to this garden in late 1920s. The garden is divided into two parts, Psyche and Cybele.

In the Psyche part, there are some nicely arranged lily pools with our national flower and some other interesting hydrophytic plants. There is a house only for Aloe plants. The unique plants, climbing Ivy (Ficus ripens var. heterophylla) and Papyrus (Cyperus papyrus), the Egyptian paper plant was collected and planted here. The lotus tank housed the famous Amajan lotus (Victoria regia) and blue nympheas. The famous pond, Sankhanidhi and the Sundial are located in the Cybele part of the garden.

After the death of the Roy Chaudhury on 13th August 1943, problems arose on the maintenance of this garden. The condition since then began to deteriorate. In 1962, the responsibility of maintenance and improvement of the garden was given to the Forest Department. In the name of collecting funds for maintenance of the garden, the Cybele part has been handed over to a private agency and it has worsened the situation. This portion has been opened to common visitors making it a pleasure garden, and taking this opportunity, some unsocial elements allegedly are doing nuisance there. It remains open from 9-12 am and 3-5 pm. Ticket price for individual is Tk.5/- only.