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Richmond’s Ginter Botanical Gardens

Richmond’s Ginter Botanical Gardens makes the perfect kid-friendly summer day that’s fun for the grown ups too!

The Richmond Botanical Gardens makes the perfect kid-friendly summer day that's fun for the grown ups too!

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Recently I headed up to Richmond, Virginia for a few days of family time! My husband’s brother and family live up there, so I got some quality time with our adorable nieces. We tie-dyed shirts, took walks, played dress up, and built legos – all seriously underrated activities in the adult world, if you ask me. We also headed out to the Lewis Ginter Botanical Gardens for an afternoon or exploration!

I love botanical gardens and often end up checking them out when I travel – some recent ones have been Atlanta and Fort Worth – but I have to say, this one stands out as a favorite.

The Richmond Botanical Gardens makes the perfect kid-friendly summer day that's fun for the grown ups too! | Teaspoon of Nose

The Richmond Botanical Gardens makes the perfect kid-friendly summer day that's fun for the grown ups too! | Teaspoon of Nose


The Richmond Botanical Gardens makes the perfect kid-friendly summer day that's fun for the grown ups too! | Teaspoon of Nose

Your perspective on going anywhere changes drastically when you do it with kids.

Some of their amenities include providing strollers (and double strollers!) free of charge, a dedicated kid section in the gift shop where they genuinely don’t mind if you play with the toys, and lots of benches to take a break and have a snack.

Oh, and did I mention a massive section dedicated to kid-friendly gardens and activities?

When we arrived, we headed straight for the treehouse. The building – big enough for grown ups too –  overlooks the pond with a whole series of ramps, making the entrance easy for strollers. We looked out the windows to see if we could spot any fish in the pond, and then pointed out all the other parts of the gardens they wanted to explore before we left.

The Richmond Botanical Gardens makes the perfect kid-friendly summer day that's fun for the grown ups too! | Teaspoon of Nose

The Richmond Botanical Gardens makes the perfect kid-friendly summer day that's fun for the grown ups too! | Teaspoon of Nose

There’s a massive children’s garden, with lots of plants to see as well as touch. We ran through an area with igloo-shaped trellises growing their leafy canopies, naming all the flowers we knew. There’s a little playhouse  complete with table and chairs inside.

The biggest hit with the girls was the splash pad, where they can run around the fountains and sprinklers to their hearts’ content. They loved cooling off in the water while their mom and I caught up sitting in the shade.

The Richmond Botanical Gardens makes the perfect kid-friendly summer day that's fun for the grown ups too! | Teaspoon of Nose

The Richmond Botanical Gardens makes the perfect kid-friendly summer day that's fun for the grown ups too! | Teaspoon of Nose

The Richmond Botanical Gardens makes the perfect kid-friendly summer day that's fun for the grown ups too! | Teaspoon of Nose

The kiddo section was fun, but my favorite part of the Ginter Botanical Gardens has to be the butterfly house. Y’all, this the best butterfly house I’ve ever been to!

I say it’s the best because no other butterfly house I’ve seen has as many (in number or different species) or has set it up in such a way that the butterflies are so up close. Close enough to need to watch your step because they’ll land on the ground right next to you!

Once again, nailing it on the kid front: they provide an activity book, with quizzes for the older kids about butterfly life cycles and photo scavenger hunt to help the littles find different species. I can report that we successfully found five of the six kinds listed, much to the delight of the five-year-old.

The Richmond Botanical Gardens makes the perfect kid-friendly summer day that's fun for the grown ups too! | Teaspoon of Nose

The Richmond Botanical Gardens makes the perfect kid-friendly summer day that's fun for the grown ups too! | Teaspoon of Nose

The Richmond Botanical Gardens makes the perfect kid-friendly summer day that's fun for the grown ups too! | Teaspoon of Nose

We loved exploring the Richmond’s Ginter Botanical Gardens! It’s always a win when you can find an activity that’s fun for both kiddos and adults, and engaging enough to go often in the hot summer months.

The Richmond Botanical Gardens makes the perfect kid-friendly summer day that's fun for the grown ups too! | Teaspoon of Nose

The Richmond Botanical Gardens makes the perfect kid-friendly summer day that's fun for the grown ups too! | Teaspoon of Nose

Where do you like to go with kids in tow?

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