Harshe Gardens

Harshe Gardens,Pennsylvania 

Overlooking the town of Hershey, Hershey Gardens features a breathtaking assortment of flowers and shrubs, a stately collection of rare, signature trees, and various programs designed to delight visitors of all ages.

3,000 Roses in Bloom

The historical highlight of Hershey Gardens, this is where it all began in 1937. The brilliant assortment of 3,000 roses representing 115 varieties includes an interesting mix of heights, colors and flower forms of Hybrid Tea, Floridan, shrub, and miniature roses, and features the new AARS rose variety winners each year. We had never seen so many roses, in so much vibrant colors, various permutations and combinations of mixture of colors in variety of roses. One can really become mad looking at all these varieties. We had a great photo session in rose gardens.

Most visitors spend two to three hours in the garden and half an hour to hour in the butterfly garden which is important attraction of the Hershey Gardens. We too take almost two- three hours in most mesmerizing natures creation of flower beds of variety of flowers of different colors and segments. The tickets for entering garden ranges from about 14 dollars to 18 dollars per person depending upon age. The garden opens at 9.00 am and closing time depends upon the season, as such visitor needs to see closing hours before visiting the gardens.

There is also special children garden, where children can play a lot in the nature and beautiful surrounding. The idea of Hershey Gardens is that you walk through it on paths to see all of the beautiful flowers and displays. You can’t ride bicycles or wear roller skates or picnic there. It’s almost like an outdoor, flowering museum! There is a map you can follow and lots of areas to explore, so wear good walking shoes. If you are visiting during a particularly hot or sunny day, you might want to wear a hat and definitely sunscreen since you’ll be outdoors.

There is an indoor conservatory where you start out, and that’s the building that houses their beautiful butterfly atrium and tropical flowers . Hershey Gardens is not just made up of flowers and trees. They have themed gardens, a children’s garden, ponds and fountains, wildlife, ornamental trees and an arboretum, changing art exhibits, a souvenir shop, and much more!

Due to paucity of time, we could not visit each and every part or section or the garden. It was just physically impossible considering the time at our disposal and energy level we need to maintain while touring and enjoying the beautiful scenes around. A lot of time is involved and devoted to wonderful photo shooting.

Butterfly Atrium

There are number of Butterflies of different shapes, sizes, colors, designs, shades roaming, flying all around you. The whole atmosphere is full of butterflies. You could never see such interesting , vibrant, colorful atmosphere anywhere , i feel. The year ‘round Butterfly Atrium offers a truly spectacular experience. Walk among hundreds of butterflies from around the world in a tropical setting that features colorful plants and a soothing water feature. Only one of 25 indoor, tropical butterfly atrium in the country, Hershey Gardens’ Butterfly Atrium is home to dozens of rare butterflies from South and Central America, Africa and Asia.

You need to take a lot of care while entering into this Butterfly Atrium. You are given a small lecture about the area, specially what you should not do inside, so as to cause any kind of harm to butterflies and also the nature in the form of trees, flows, fruits kept there for the butterflies. You are expected to keep your coats outside, if you are wearing while entering into this specific area.

The warm, tropical environment in the Atrium is necessary for butterflies. Many of these exotic plants produce nectar, a critical food source for butterflies. Here are just a few spectacular varieties:

• Cacao tree; its pods are used to make chocolate
• Plumeria tree; its flowers are used to make flower garlands (leis)
• Hawaiian Ti Plant ‘Red Ruby’ and ‘Red Sister’
• Golden Shrimp Plant
• Jatropha Plant

We could see number of plates kept there as food for butterflies wherein lot of frozen fruits like bananas, strawberries, apples slices were seen, and the butterflies were seen enjoying their food immensely. We can take photographs inside, but with great care and caution only.

We all enjoyed so many different vibrant butterflies flying around us, eating their food, playing with each other in the air, resting on some branches or leaves of the plants inside etc.

The management here takes great care of butterflies.  Visitors are thoroughly checked while going inside and also while coming out.  You cannot take anything inside except mobile. While coming out also they check that you are not taking out with you any rare species of butterflies, or it is not on your dress, clothes, pockets etc.