Hakgala Botanical Garden is the second-largest garden in Sri Lanka. The garden is contiguous to Hakgala Strict Nature Reserve. Hakgala Botanical Garden is situated on the Nuwara Eliya-Badulla main road, 16 km from Nuwara Eliya. The garden has a cool temperate climate because of altitude is 5,400 feet above the sea level. The mean annual temperature ranges between 16 °C to 30 °C during the course of a year. There are over 10,000 species of flora planted here and during the Spring season in Nuwara Eliya thousands of visitors come to see the blooms here. The garden is famous for the number of species of Orchids and Roses are planted there. The garden was established in 1861, under George Henry Kendrick Thwaites as an experimental cultivation of Cinchona, a commercial crop thriving at the time. Once after the Tea replaced the Cinchona, it was turned into experimental Tea cultivation. In 1884 it transformed into a garden.

Reference – Wikipedia