Ein Gedi Botanical Garden

Ein Gedi, Israel, Israel

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Ein Gedi Botanical Garden is a unique prize‑winning botanical garden in Kibbutz Ein Gedi, on the western shore of the Dead Sea in the Judean Desert, Israel, recognized in 1994 as an International Botanical Garden and celebrated as the only botanical garden in the world where people live—residents’ homes are integrated with the plant collections.

Established in the early 1960s by kibbutz members who planted over 1,000 desert‑adapted trees and another 1,000 types of cacti using drip irrigation, the garden now showcases about 1,000 species of indigenous and exotic flora from around the globe in a jungle‑like oasis beside the Ein Gedi Nature Reserve.

Highlights include biblical plants such as frankincense and myrrh, the highly poisonous Sodom apple, gargantuan baobab trees, tropical plants from Madagascar and Australia, African palms, Australian trees, and typical Israeli plants like olives, pomegranates, and figs, all thriving in an arid environment.

Visitors can walk gentle hiking trails, admire wildlife, enjoy a waterfall, and use family facilities such as a petting zoo, workshops, and an Olympic‑size pool, while a nursery sells seedlings for home gardens.