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Walter Kerr Garden

The Walter Kerr Garden is bordered on one side by the Wildlife Walkthrough, Parrot Sanctuary and Insect House, and can be accessed from each of these. It is also the location of the popular Native Mammal Display and Jim Ades Raptor Sanctuary. 

This wedge-shaped copse at the foot of KFBG’s valley was originally laid out as a pleasure garden in the 1970s using mainly exotic ornamental plants. Although the streamside slopes were terraced at that time, the site retains many outstanding natural features, none less than the enormous mossy boulders characteristic of Hong Kong’s dramatic granite-hewn streams. The original planting has now matured and includes some splendid camphor trees (Cinnamomum camphora), a massive specimen of the locally rare hiptage vine (Hiptage benghalensis) and one of the largest Birdwood’s mucunas (Mucuna birdwoodiana) in the territory. This curious leguminous vine puts on a show-stopping display of pungent yellow-green flowers every spring, which gives way to an enchanting hanging garden of large pendant pods through the summer. 

The garden also abounds with unique heritage features, including the ceramic tiled Angled Bridge and two unusual pigeon coups. The stream itself is the heart of the garden and many small concrete dams can be seen along its course here; these were put in place to create ponds for the ducks that used to be kept here. See if you can spot the streamside shack that the ducks used to live in! The stream is now home to native wildlife. If you look carefully as you stride across the stepping stones, you may be lucky enough to spot a Hong Kong newt (Paramesotriton hongkongensis), which has a flourishing population in KFBG. Elegant little egrets (Egretta garzetta), blue whistling thrush (Myophonus caeruleus) and even the slaty-backed forktail (Enicurus schistaceus) are also occasional visitors to the stream, whilst the forest-like habitat and garden edges attracts a wide range of native birds including fork-tailed sunbirds (Aethopyga christinae) speckled piculet (Picumnus innominatus), common tailorbird (Orthotomus sutorius)red-billed blue magpie (Urocissa erythroryncha) and blue-winged minla (Actinodura cyanouroptera) 

In addition to the original planting, the garden is now home to what has become Hong Kong’s richest ex situ conservation collection of native plants. Numerous beautiful rare and protected species can be seen here, displayed in naturalistic plantings. These include offspring of the region’s only known remaining wild Taraw palm (Livistona saribus) and the elegant Ford’s licuala (Licuala fordiana), an understory palm with only one known wild population in Hong Kong. Other rarities include stately spiney tree ferns (Cyathea spinulosa) Westland’s birthwort (Aristolochia westlandii), whose bizare flower appears to mimic rotten flesh and is one of the largest of any Chinese plant species, as well as the the Hong kong Star Anise (Illicium leiophyllum) and the Hong Kong Hornbeam (Carpinus insularis) two critically endangered trees that are nowhere else in the world outside Hong Kong!  Hong Kong’s largest butterflies, the magnificent golden & common birdwings breed on the Dutchman’s pipe (Aristolochia acuminata) here as well as the uniquely fussy white dragontail (Lamproptera curius), the world’s smallest swallowtail. This lightning-fast butterfly will only lay its eggs on the Celebes illigera (Illigera celebica), a rare liana that can be seen above the Stream Life Display.