Williamsburg Botanical Garden is a smaller botanical garden in comparison to Norfolk's, but do not…read moreunderestimate it for its size! It's completely free admission and is open until sunset. It is densely packed with all sorts of plants for all seasons, from small ground covers to thick-trunked loblolly trees. It showcases plenty of plants native to Virginia and plants that can be planted in zone 8, hence, it teems with life. It's a great sanctuary for pollinators and you do see plenty of them from bees, wasps, beetles, to caterpillars, butterflies, and hummingbirds that fly around you as you explore. :)
From a distance it looks like the same looking green stuff, but when you look closely each patch is a variety of plants serving different purposes. We visited the garden late summer and saw plenty of Monarch caterpillars feeding on common milkweeds. If you didn't pay attention to the foliage you would have missed the hundreds of them fattening up. The place teaches you to really look at things to appreciate the ecosystem that thrives there. It doesn't seem too big from the outside, but it's easy to get lost with everything to be seen from the inside. My husband and I jokingly dubbed it "the gift that keeps on giving." Corny, yeah, but we genuinely felt like we kept seeing more new plants and new areas right when we felt like we've seen it all.
They also have little benches scattered around for sitting just to enjoy the atmosphere. Such a great place for plant lovers and people who enjoy the peace of the outdoors minus the strenuous hike that is required to explore an overwhelmingly large botanical garden.
The surrounding areas also have plenty of trails for a long walk, an outdoor obstacle course that is a good challenge for adults and kids alike, a small museum with a dipping dots, and an open field great for a peaceful picnic, a frisbee game, or for just running around.
If you wanna go outside and touch grass, this is place!