Sri Lanka’s botanic Gardens have a long and proud history, punctuated by colonialism, industrial change, and wars. Throughout this period the Gardens have continued to flourish, and the plant collections and herbarium have grown nowadays the Gardens represent a significant national asset for Sri Lanka. The plant collection and herbarium are important resources for both teaching and research, serving as reference for the different plant families, genera, and species represented.
Gardens provide an area for leisure where examples of plants from around the world demonstrate the diversity and beauty of the plant kingdom to share knowledge and expertise in conservation, biodiversity, floriculture, and sustainability. The Gardens exist for people; and over 2milion of them visit the gardens annually.
All the botanic gardens are managed and maintained by the Department of National Botanic Gardens, employing almost 450 people. All Botanic Gardens functioned under the Department were started during the early years of the 19th century. The Royal Botanic Gardens, Peradeniya (1821); Botanic Gardens in Hakgala (1861) and Botanic Gardens, Henarathgoda, Gampaha (1876) were established by the British to conduct experiments on exotic economic plants and explore plant wealth on the island.
These institutions were responsible for all major plant introductions for economic and environmental development in Sri Lanka. In addition to the main 3 Botanic Gardens a National Medicinal Plant Garden was established in the 1950s at Ganewatta to promote conservation, sustainable use, and management of Medicinal Plants in Sri Lanka. Two new botanic gardens were established in Hambanthota for ex-situ conservation of Dry Zone plants and in Avissawella for ex-situ conservation of Wet Zone plants with expectations of the economic development of the country.
All the botanic gardens are working towards achieving the vision, of being the finest botanic garden in the tropics by providing opportunities for the public to study, sustainably conserve, and admire plant resources in natural and man-made environments regional centers for plant life, and the national red list authority for plants. Current activities within the Department of National Botanic Gardens include education and training high-quality scientific research with contributions to biodiversity, ex-situ conservation, and public education and addressing in-situ conservation measures; biodiversity, floriculture as well as it is responsible for the maintenance and development of the Botanic Gardens and its allied units.