Rio de Janeiro botanical garden photos: seasons, light and spots

For a garden that lives outdoors, the season matters more than the date on the calendar. The national weather institute, INMET, publishes climate normals for a station actually named Jardim Botânico, listed as code 83796 at 22°58'S and 43°13'W, at an altitude of 5 m.⁵ The figures below come from its 1961-1990 normals, which are old but are the series INMET publishes for that station, and they describe the pattern of the seasons, not a forecast.⁵

The pattern is a warm, wet summer and a cooler, drier winter, which is what anyone searching for the temperatura no Jardim Botânico do Rio de Janeiro will find. The maximum temperature normal runs from 30.0 degrees C in January and 30.3 in February down to 24.5 in July,² while the minimum falls from 22.2 in February to 16.0 in July.³ In other words, even the coolest month is mild for most visitors, and the real difference between seasons is how much rain falls and how long the air feels heavy.

Rain is the second lever. Monthly rainfall normals run from 219.3 mm in February to 82.1 mm in June,¹ and the year total is 1,736.5 mm.¹ Rio de Janeiro botanical garden weather is therefore summer storms against a quieter winter, with the rainy season shaped by the wet months from December to April and the drier stretch from May to September. Use the table below to see the months side by side.

From May to September the garden changes character. Rainfall falls to 128.8 mm in May and to 82.1 mm in June,¹ and the number of days with 1 mm or more drops to 7 in May, 8 in June and 7 in July.⁹ The maximum temperature normal sits between 24.5 and 26.1 degrees C across these months,² which suits a long trail. If the choice is yours, this is the comfortable half of the year, and a good time for the longer trails that the garden lists on its own page.

The minimum temperature normal in the coolest months is 16.8 degrees C in June and 16.0 in July,³ so a light jacket is enough for early mornings and evenings. Hummingbird sightings thin out in winter, because some species only pass through or lie low, so the cool months have their own wildlife and their own gaps.¹³ The page on wildlife explains the rest of the animals you can expect to see.

The months between seasons, October and November, bring the rain back: 147.5 mm in October and 158.1 mm in November,¹ with 11 and 12 days of 1 mm or more.⁹ The maximum temperature rises from 25.8 degrees C in October to 26.9 in November.² These shoulder months give soft light, though the weather can still turn, so keep a layer in your bag. Because the figures are long-term normals, treat them as a guide to the pattern rather than a promise about any single week, and glance at the forecast a few days before you go so that you can swap a garden day with a museum or a beach day if the sky looks wrong.

The first picture stop is the one everybody expects: the alley of imperial palms, which the garden calls its main symbol.⁶ Rio botanical garden palm trees look best from the middle of the alley, looking straight along the line of trunks, with the crowns meeting overhead. Come early and the alley is quiet, which gives you a clean frame. A wide lens lets you include the whole colonnade.

The water gardens offer a second set of pictures. Frei Leandro Lake has giant water lilies,²¹ the Japanese Garden, set up in 1935 from 65 donated plants,²³ lies on the same walk, and the Turtle Lake gives you animals at eye level.²⁴ A tripod is rarely needed in daylight, and a polarising filter helps to cut the glare on the water. The map above numbers every stop in a sensible walking order.

Under glass, the glass orchid house, which the garden calls an icon,⁸ and the Bromeliário, a tribute to Roberto Burle Marx, dates from 1975.²² Both reward macro lenses and patience. For a change of scale, Riotur names the Echo and Narcissus statues and the Academy portal by Grandjean de Montigny,²⁵ which give the garden an architectural subject among the plants, a welcome change of scale when you have been shooting petals for an hour and want a frame with straight lines and stone.