Baldah Garden : A lonely sanctuary at Dhaka
When you are in Dhaka , you may get exhausted and bored looking at the rising structures on all sides you cast your eyes. Take only an hour's retreat before or after launch and take a taxi and tell him to take you to Baldah Garden.
Baldah Garden is one of the oldest botanical gardens established in this part of Bengal . It is rather an old garden; 95 years have passed since its doors are opened for public.
Located at Wari, in the old part of the city of Dhaka, it is set up by a private individual. The naturalist, philanthropist and poet Narendra Narayan Roy Chaudhury, landlord of the estate of Baladah,established the garden on his own property in 1909.He collected different types of rare plants from almost all over the world from 1909 to 1940.
The total area of the Baldah Garden covers 3.38 acres. The garden is divided into two units. The larger unit is named Cybele after the Greek nature goddess of fertility. It is roughly rectangular, with the nortern side slightly cutting a corner , and measures about 136 metres in length and 76 metres in length and 76 metres in width . The smaller unit, Psyche meaning 'soul',is approximately 100 metres long and 45 metres in wude.
Narendera Narayan passionately enriched the grden with rare plant species collectes from different parts of the world until his death in 1943. His successors left Dhaka and they were not interested to it therefore further expansion and management of the garden came to a halt.
The garden was handed over to the government of (the then) East Pakistan in 1962 and the Forestry Department took charge of managing the garden . After the certain of Bangladesh 1971, the Department of Forestry of the new government began to work with renewed vigor for its improvement, with the result that most of its past glory has now been restored with the addition if two new greenhouses and modernization of civil amenities inside the garden. The Baldah Garden is now managed as a satellite unit of the National Botanical Garden by the Department of Forestry. Since 2004 , the control of the gate to the garden has been leased out to a private operator.
The collection of the garden is classified into seven categories - orchids, cacti, conservatory plants, aquatic plants, arboretum, and miscellaneous flora . The garden has about 15,000 plants representing 672 species. Many of these are exotic and rare plants; perhaps the richest collection of exotic plants in the country is housed in the Baldah Garden. The flora of the garden represents collections from over 50 different countries. 
To enjoy the floristic beauty of the garden a rest house-cum-amphitheater , called the Joy House, was built in the garden. Many celebrities have visited it, including Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore, whose poem Camellia was actually writt3en while he was staying in this Joy House.
The Rose Garden in Cybele is famous throughout the subcontinent for its rich collection of roses One of the greenhouses has rich collections of orchids,avoids and conservatory plants. There is a big sundial in the Cybele unit of the Garden , which shows the time of the day with precision on sunny days and is still a surprise attraction to the visitors , particularly children.
There is a Baldah Museum which was established in 1925, which house mixed collection of coins, beads, books on art, models of rural life, ivory and silver filigree works, arms and weapons, rural and other treasures from the sea . Though some of these treasures have been transferred to Bangladesh National Museum.
Baldah Garden, although relatively small in size, is an exciting place for naturalists and tourists to visit.
Visitors can easily explore through the Cybele section, but entry to Psyche section is not open to common people. Permission may be obtained by requesting the gate man as special case.
