This tour invites you to walk the arboretum at your own pace, following the trails on the map. At each stop you’ll find a story and a small invitation to connect with nature through your senses. You can do it on your phone as you walk —scanning the QR code on each tree’s label to open its profile— or read it calmly from home before you visit.
- Open the interactive map and pick a route: short, medium or long (shown as coloured lines).
- Walk the trail and look for the trees in the stops below.
- At each specimen, scan the QR code on its label to see its profile, photo and location.
- Take your time. The “invitations” are just that —invitations. Explore whatever feels good to you.
Before you start
What to bring
Water, comfortable shoes, insect repellent and a bag to carry out your own litter (there are no bins inside the parks).
With respect and care
You may gently touch the plants, ask their permission, smell them… but please do not pick anything. They are living beings. This is not a museum to view from afar: it is a living place to inhabit with tenderness.
The story of these gardens
More than 40 years ago, where you now see these gardens there was a potato field. Picture all of this as bare farmland, nothing but crops.
How do you turn a field into a botanical garden? It took plants, water, work and a great deal of care. But above all it took a vision, a dream sustained over decades. That dreamer was Héctor Biocca, who devoted his life to restoring this landscape and turning it into a space for the conservation and study of flora.
Héctor studied plants deeply —their growth, their colours through the year— and designed by hand, with pencil and paper, the layout of three parks: Park I (where you are now, near the house), Park II (begun in 2000) and Park III (from 2007). He travelled widely to find specimens, especially to nurseries near the Andes. With his family he planted them, cared for them and followed their adaptation —most are exotic species— and lived to watch his parks grow for 30 years.
Today his family is dedicated to preserving and sharing this legacy. Together with biology PhDs from CONICET, naturalists and teams from the Caburé-í Foundation and GEMAF, a flora and fauna survey has already identified more than 45 bird species and more than 300 plant species. Because of that diversity —and because Mar del Plata never had a botanical garden— the biologists suggested opening these gardens to the community.
The stops
Along the walk you’ll meet trees worth pausing for. Here are three not-to-miss stops, each with a small invitation to experience it with all your senses.
Stop 1 · The Eastern red cedar
The game of the senses
The Eastern red cedar (Sabina virginiana) is a good place to start looking differently. We often move through nature using only our eyes, and miss nearly everything else.
Close your eyes for a moment. Touch the bark, or gently rub a leaf between your fingers. What do you feel? Is it rough or smooth? Does it have a scent or not? Cool, warm? There are no right answers: this is your own way of connecting with a living being. It’s only an invitation —go as far as feels comfortable.
Stop 2 · The redwoods
Who is older?
Before reading on, a question: of all the trees on the route, which do you think is the oldest?
Here two related giants grow side by side: the Giant sequoia (Sequoiadendron giganteum), the largest living being on Earth by volume, and the Coast redwood (Sequoia sempervirens), the tallest tree in the world, able to exceed 100 metres. In their native California, some specimens live more than 2,000 years.
One of the biologists supporting the project tells the story of this giant sequoia in the arboretum (in Spanish):
Both species are classified as Endangered EN · Endangered on the IUCN Red List. Seeing them grow here, so far from home, is also an invitation to protect them. More on conservation in the catalogue »
Stop 3 · Pines and araucarias
Guess what it’s used for
Standing before a pine (Pinus radiata) or an araucaria (Araucaria bidwillii), look at a leaf, a cone or a seed and ask yourself: what do you think this plant is used for?
Learn more about the bunya araucaria (Araucaria bidwillii) with the arboretum team (in Spanish):
Many conifers provide timber for construction; some, resins used in medicine and perfumery. The seeds of certain araucarias —the pine nuts— have fed whole peoples for centuries. A single tree can be shelter, food and material all at once. Can you think of other uses?
To close
If you can, end the walk by sitting for a moment —ideally near the water— and stay with one of these questions. You don’t have to answer out loud; sometimes it’s enough to let it linger:
- What do you take away from this visit? If you like, sum it up in one word.
- If you could plant a tree here, which would you choose and why?
- What emotion or feeling stayed with you after walking the garden?
- What new idea or reflection about nature and conservation do you take home today?
Would you rather be accompanied?
You can do this tour on your own, but we also offer guided tours with our team, photography walks, school visits and seed-collecting days.
Content adapted from the guiding script of the Botanical Walk at Estancia La Constancia. Conservation status: IUCN Red List.