Garden globetrotting: St Lucia

With a verdant landscape containing dense rainforest, a waterfall that changes colour and more tropical plants than you could ever wish for, Blake Roberts was blown away by St Lucia's natural beauty... and its chocolate!

- Blake Roberts, Digital Editor

I expected beaches, rum cocktails and a healthy dose of relaxation on the small Eastern Caribbean island of St Lucia - and yes, I found all of those things. But what I hadn't anticipated was the island's incredible botanical beauty.

From the plane window, the island unfurled below - a lush patchwork of emerald forests, hidden coves and the twin spires of the famous Pitons (two spectacular UNESCO-listed mountains that are St Lucia's most recognisable landmarks) rising steep and proud from the sea.

My first excursion was to the Diamond Falls Botanical Gardens, just a short ride from the charming town of Soufrière. The gardens are part of the estate gifted by King Louis XIV in the 1700s and feel wonderfully curated without being overly manicured. Paths wind through towering ferns, fiery heliconias, ginger lilies, bromeliads and giant bamboo, with banana leaves spreading overhead like umbrellas, and elephant's ears and caladiums jostling for space below. Shafts of light pierce the canopy, revealing hidden blooms and butterflies, and I saw my first hummingbird - a flash of purple and green darting between hibiscus blooms, so fast it felt like a trick of the light. At the trail's end is the famous waterfall, streaked in yellows and oranges from mineral-rich water - a spectacular focal point with tumbling tradescantia covering the surrounding rocks.