2025
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The most famous garden of the island, where lives a wild nature, patiently tamed by the landscape magician Jean-Philippe Thoze.
With over 3,000 plant species, Balata is the island's most famous garden. Tens of thousands of visitors flock here every year to discover the incredible botanical wealth of this garden, created from scratch by nature-loving horticulturist Jean-Philippe Thoze.
The landscape gardener knows this property well: his grandmother had built a country house here, in which he stored plants brought back from his countless travels and seeds found locally in Martinique. In the mid-1980s, Jean-Philippe Thoze had the idea of bringing his collection of plants and seeds together in this green setting, once entirely covered by forest, to create a unique garden. In this valley overlooking Fort-de-France, exuberant, untamed tropical nature has flourished freely for centuries. He named the garden Balata, after the district to the north of Fort-de-France, which was once populated by balatas, a tree favored by the natives and now very rare. Begun in 1982 around the family home, the area continues to be enriched by royal palms, balisiers, hibiscus, bromeliads, porcelain roses, anthuriums and wild orchids.
To complete this discovery, the walk "at the top of the botanical garden", at a height of over 15 metres, is entirely secured by nets and accessible to all (from 8 years old), offering a breathtaking panorama over the bay of Fort-de-France and the Pitons du Carbet.
Did you know? This review was written by our professional authors.
Further information
Opening time and information on JARDIN DE BALATA
Daily, 9 am to 6 pm. Adults 16 €. Children €11. Combined ticket with zoo. Adult €31.50, child €21.
Owner's Message
Kingdom of trees, flowers and hummingbirds, the garden of Balata is a magical place, where nature reigns supreme. You have to enter to feel the flood of infinite impressions that suddenly invades the visitor.
Designed as a work of art with patience and tenderness, the garden offers all the poetry of a land where plants evolve in a harmonious mix of colors and scents. It is a place where life recovers its meaning and to discover it, it is enough to take the Route de la Trace which connects the capital to Morne Rouge.
Cascades of sensuality
The entrance lined with alpinias leads to an old small wooden Creole house with a particular charm due to the elegance of its pagoda roof. Inside, antique furniture and engravings recall the life of the past. Far from being a strictly laid out site where the varieties are accumulated and respect a rigorous order, the garden of Balata is a sequence of diverse and poetic atmospheres.
***The visit is conceived as a colorful and shady walk through a morne:
The itinerary begins with the cycas alley and leads to a collection of Bromeliads, epiphytic plants that grow both in the ground and on a natural support. Mainly native to Central and South America, they offer us flowers that can reach 5 to 6 meters high in various shades of green, pink or even blue.
Further on, a strangler fig tree has enclosed in its roots a coconut tree hardly visible today. Going down to a basin where water hyacinths and lotuses compete with elegance in the shade of royal palms, the stroller passes by a cheese tree.
Then the stroll continues through the bamboo grove which is in fact a single clump of Dandrocalamus, the largest bamboo in the world, from a cutting brought back from Guyana 10 years ago by Jean Philippe Thoze.
Another surprising place, the passage under the Pandanus. This shrub with fragile branches naturally emits roots towards the ground in sufficient quantity to always compensate for the considerable weight of its leaves. Everywhere in the garden emanates the scent of porcelain roses, anthuriums, begonias, beeches, hibiscus, heliconias or orchids.
***A promise of moments of serenity and fullness:
It is certain that this visit will satisfy nature lovers.
The immense diversity of species and the succession of colourful atmospheres give the site all the poetry and tranquility of this tropical garden embracing enchanting views of the Pitons du Carbet or the Anses d'Arlet and Cape Solomon.
The designer of this idyllic picture is certainly an artist. Let us rejoice! He is working on the rehabilitation of the Habitation Anse Latouche to create another garden... extraordinary.
Members' reviews on JARDIN DE BALATA
The ratings and reviews below reflect the subjective opinions of members and not the opinion of The Little Witty.
