We want to visit one garden on our Kauai vacation. Would like to see some flowers, take some good pictures, & preferably tour it on our own if possible. Any recommendations?

We loved our guided tour of the Allerton gardens. You cannot tour it on your own. It is a very interesting place with lots of gorgeous "outdoor rooms" that Allerton and his partner designed. I understand that Limahuli on the North Shore is also worth a visit.

You can tour Limahuli and McBryde on your own.

Allerton and Na Aina Ka require that you go with tour guides.

Definitely go to the National Tropical Botanical Gardens. You get to see the Allerton Gardens, plus get a great guided tour. The cost was $30.00 and so worth it. We hadn't planned on going there at all, but we were so glad we did. Our tour guide was Wendy and she was so knowledgeable and funny. Request her!

We visited Limahuli Garden in March and enjoyed it very much (Limahuli also is part of the National Tropical Botanical Garden). For about $10, we got a pretty comprehensive booklet and then were able to walk the path on our own. We only saw a few other people during the entire visit. Very picturesque setting on the North Shore. The path goes up and down the hill, and there also are nice views of the coastline and mountains. I put a few pics from the garden in our webshots album, if you want an idea of what it looks like:

http://community.webshots.com/album/126908026tTBpkg

There are two lovely gardens that are free and do not require a tour. The first is the Japanese garden at the Kikuioloni Golf Course in Kalaheo on the west side of island. Drive through the entrance to the golf course and, instead of veering right toward the club house, go straight to the circle and parking area. The garden will be in front of you; you can't miss it. Expect to spend 30-45 minutes there. The other tour-free garden is the Moir Garden at the Kiahuna Plantation in Poipu. Park at the lot next to the Sheraton and head into the Plantation, looking for the restaurant. The older cactus garden will appear right in front of you near the restaurant, and the newer orchid garden, which is simply spectacular, is to your right and toward the entrance to the restaurant. You can spend 60-90 minutes in this garden easily.

My wife and I are very serious gardeners, but we found the self-guided tour of Limihuli Gardens to be less than wonderful because the garden is all about native and "second-generation" plants with which we were not familiar. It was still very nice walking through the garden--the views are spectacular--but the experience was not as rich as it was when we did the formal tour the next time we were on Kauai.

The guided Allerton tour is superb, especially if you get the right guide. When you call for reservations, ask when Al is giving the tour; if you can get him, go for it! Al is not critical, however! The first time we did the tour, our guide was less than wonderful yet the experience was still great.

Na Aina Kai is beautiful and fascinating. It's a guided tour only, however. On our one visit there we were lucky enough to take a tour given by Joyce Doty, the original owner of the tree farm and house that are the basis for the tour. She was wonderful. But I'm sure that any guide will be fine for this simply spectacular garden.

Thank you everyone for you input. Looks like its going to be a tough decision. If we do decide on a guided tour can I book it a week in advance or should I book it sooner? We are going in October.

ms go-Thank you for sharing your pictures. They are absolutely amazing. I hope ours turn out just as good.

Perhaps because we were on Kauai, we experienced the opposite problem of not enough people showing up for the staff at Limahuli to give a walking tour, & so you might be left with a self-guided tour if you can't reschedule, while Allerton Gardens had more people attending and yet we still did not require advance reservations last March.

I made reservations a week ahead for the Allerton just to be on the safe side. On less thing to remember to do while I was in island slow down mode.
-Bill

We called a day ahead for the National Tropical Botanical Gardens. I almost didn't call because the blue book said you'd need to reserve before you go to Kaua'i. We lucked out though!