OOTY
22-hectare garden laid out in 1848, includes a fossilized tree trunk estimated at 20 million years old. Go on a weekday morning — weekend crowds make the paths feel more like a market than a garden.
Laid out in 1848 on the lower slopes of Doddabetta under an initial plan by the Marquis of Tweeddale, the garden was developed over roughly a decade by William Graham McIvor, a horticulturist sent from the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, by the East India Company. McIvor converted a mix of forest and swampy land into a formal 22-hectare garden, introducing many exotic and economically important plant species to the region. It remains under the Tamil Nadu Horticulture Department and hosts the annual Summer Flower Show.
