Kenilworth Park and Aquatic Gardens

This isn’t your typical park or garden, it’s more like a marshland. It’s very serene and quaint; I loved being able to walk through the park with my dogs. The facilities were great. The grounds were clean, paths and trails were well maintained, trash cans near the entrance, picnic tables were available, and they had a water fountain. Right now the lotuses are not exactly in bloom, but the lotus seed pods were an amazing sight in itself. You can see fields and fields of them, as far as your eyes can see. I can’t wait to come back when it’s lotus season, the couple of them that I did see were humongous. In addition, the lily/​lotus pads were unimaginably huge. It’s almost as if they were radioactively grown. The best part about this park is that it is free. Parking was also free and plentiful. Great way escape the city when you need to.

What a beautiful little oasis int he middle of an unexpected part of the city!
Thumbs up because…
— romantic (for just yourself or you and a partner) because you can find yourself alone walking on the boardwalk past the main aquatic gardens
— natural and exotic, you get flora AND fauna; within my hour and half/​two hours there, I saw two beautiful blue herons quite close-​up, and the beautiful lotus blossoms
— enough but not excessive walking: in the sub-​two hours I was there, pretty much covered everything.
people, check this gem out

The aquatic gardens are a hidden gem of DC. The Lilly pad fields are beautiful and there is an endless maze to explore. It’s really well maintained and pups are allowed on leash. I think this would be a great spot to hold events as well, but I haven’t yet done that. I highly recommend to anyone to spend one hour or one day. There’s so much to do!

Amazing place hidden away in DC. It’s absolutely beautiful here! Go early in the day to avoid the extreme summer heat and a little sunscreen wouldn’t hurt. There are picnic tables throughout the park if you’re planning to stay a while. The park is generally pretty quiet and it’s not uncommon to see only one or two other people during a visit. The park rangers are friendly and knowledgable. Keep an eye out for snapping turtles. They’re big, but they move really fast! Also, black water snakes are a pretty common sight here. No need to freak out, they aren’t venomous and they’re more interested in catching frogs than people!

This is a beautiful oasis in a concrete jungle. I thank the Park Service so much for maintaining this gem! There is so much wildlife here living harmoniously, make sure to walk through w/​o music and just listen to the sounds of nature. If you want to see the lilies make sure you go in the AM when it’s cool, they don’t like the heat and will close up.

One of the most beautiful places in DC! So peaceful especially when you go back on the boardwalk. Came here a few days before the lily festival and flowers were in full bloom!

Not what you’d expect from a National Park, these Gardens amount to a few acres of marsh that were a long time ago converted to ponds that grow varieties of lilies and lotuses. The lily pads are large, and the lotuses occasionally startlingly pretty. Who knew. Fun for kids, it seemed, and not a bad place to swing by for an hour or so, if you’re around.
I came early one summer day, and noticed more and more lotuses blossoming as the sun rose and spread shine on the ponds. Nature!

Solid park, just in a bad neighborhood. Visited today for the Lotus Flower Festival. Moderately crowded in the park, but parking was riiiiiiiiiiiidiculous. What small lots the park has were reserved for event staff and handicapped. Everyone else had to find street parking… we found a spot 7 blocks away. Ordinarily I wouldn’t mind the walk, but in this case, the park isn’t in the best of neighborhoods. And, while there was a police presence, they stuck the street immediately in front of the park, arguably the safest looking street in the area.
Parking and neighborhood aside, the park was much better than I expected. It was substantial, with numerous large ponds of lilies and lotus flowers. There’s also a nice boardwalk that stretches well into the interior of the wetlands, taking you to nature you didn’t imagine existed in this part of town.

It’s a great place to visit, the water lilies and lotus are everywhere. I go there at least 4 to 7 times a year.

I really hated this place when my parents dragged me here as a kid. It wasn’t big enough, there was no place to really run around, and I never understood why exactly we were getting up early to see lily pads.
Perhaps my tastes have matured, I’ve definitely come around. Kenilworth aquatic gardens is one of those off the beaten trail places that is actually amazing. Right on the Anacostia River, a 10 minute walk from a metro station, is a really beautiful aquatic garden that has lotus flowers and night blooming lilies. Somehow everyone with a giant telephoto lens knows about this place, but no one else I know does.
Anyway, aside from the beautiful flowers there is also a cool board walked marsh walk as well as a river trail (which is currently undergoing renovation). You can also kayak/​canoe here supposedly (though I’ve never done it).
I wouldn’t want to spend more than two hours here, but it’s a nice place to start the morning and highly recommended. Thanks you Mr. Shaw for starting a quirky place that is still great today. Please just don’t force your kids to come.

Wait, we’re still in DC? A great nature escape that’s inside the city.
Kenilworth aquatic gardens is a gorgeous park that is super relaxing with tons of ponds (yes, you may have guessed that from the aquatic gardens name.). What i liked about it was the paths and sort of ‘boardwalk’ and the fact you could meander really close to ponds. With such lush vegetation you forget that you are still in DC. When I was there part of the park was closed for maintenance but most of it was still open.
If you’re like me you may have seen the location and wondered «sounds great but I wonder if I’m gonna get shot» hahahah… (sorry kiddos, I tell it how it is). No worries, the area is very safe or at least seemed so. The parking lot is located near the park and I found that all my prior concerns were unfounded.
There were lots of flowers on display and I heard that July is when a lot of the lotus flowers come out (or lillies, i kept confusing the two)

We came here in late October on a cold day. It was also overcast. The ground was also muddy. And yet… this place WOWed me. It was gorgeous, peaceful, and really quite intoxicating. We loved walking around the various areas of the gardens, looking at the lotus pod things, admiring the birds…
I cannot wait to visit when everything is in bloom.
Oh, and it’s free. FREE.

As mentioned elsewhere, its a great hidden gem in the city. Since my first visit a couple years ago I’ve been back 20 – 30 times with the dog. Its across the Anacostia from the National Arboretum and along with Anacostia Park and Langston golf course it makes up a large, mostly uninterrupted, area of woods, marsh, and otherwise fairly undeveloped land between Benning Rd and Rt 50 along both sides of the river. Great for seeing all sorts of wildlife besides the usual squirrels, rodents, crows, starlings, and sparrows which dominate closer to home. In the last 10 visits or so I’ve seen a large Whitetail Buck, several foxes, painted turtles and sliders in abundance, a large northern black racer, numerous eastern water snakes, garter snake, and many, many unusual (for me in the city) birds: Gold finch, Eastern bluebird, oriole, great egret, great blue heron, red winged black birds, indigo bunting, pilliated woodpecker, some hawks I’m unsure of, and on and on. Its a place you can quickly walk the entirety of in 90 minutes or so but could also spend a half day or more poking around and searching with binoculars or taking pictures. And contrary to what I would have expected, the Mosquitos aren’t bad at all, usually non-​existent. Evidently the dragon flies and other natural predators control the population much more so than elsewhere in town.
If you can sneak away on a weekday you’ll have the park mostly to yourself. Occasionally there may be a school group. Weekends are busier but not crowded, though I haven’t been for an event or peak bloom sort of period.

My pal and I went to the Lotus & Water Lily Festival today. I took lots of pics with my cellphone, but needn’t bother to post any because there are many already posted. The lotus flowers were beautiful and plentiful. The trails are pleasant to walk.
The focus on the two stages today was Asia and South Africa’s cultures. There was dancing, Singing, and cooking demos on two stages. There was. Buddhist Sutra chanting too. There were many arts and crafts activities for the kids.
A great way to enjoy a leisurely day is what you’ll find here at the Gardens. There is a decent sized parking lot, but there is plenty of side street parking available on festival days.
Be cautious of Poison Ivy!

Nestled in Anacostia, Kenilworth Park and Aquatic Gardens is a picturesque, unique sanctuary in D.C. I came here for the Lotus and Water Lily Cultural Festival and was pleasantly surprised by how large this park is. There were so many lotus flowers and water lilies, in shades of white, pink, and an ombré of colors in between the two shades. It was quite the sight and an enjoyable departure from the typical D.C. fare. The park has a long boardwalk that stretches over marshes. The ponds that hold the lotuses and water lilies are separate from the marshes. There’s a lot of wildlife here too, from frogs, turtles, dragonflies, to herons.
The Lotus and Water Lily Cultural Festival is an annual event put together by the National Park Service to celebrate the full bloom of these pretty flowers and showcase African and Asian culture (as these two continents consider these flowers cultural icons). There are a lot of activities such as dance, cooking demonstrations, arts and crafts, lotus tea tasting, face painting, origami, music, and educational programs like wildlife talks.

I volunteered here with a work group, and boy, I am glad I did! It’s amazing that this super cool hidden gem is right in the backyard of DC! Apparently this is a great spot in the summer, too.
There is a greenhouse with a variety of plants and flowers, lotus paradise, and animal-​spotting habitat (although all I saw was a turtle). There is a ginormous lake and nature walk that you can take around the gardens.
All the staff are really friendly and know a lot about nature, the best times to visit, exotic animals that you can see, and more. Don’t forget to stop by the cute gift shop!
BTW, the only reason I’m not giving this place 5 stars is because when I drove here, I was scared to death of the surrounding neighborhood. It’s a little «rough.» I wouldn’t drive around the area in the evening.

It’s a pretty impressive and valuable preserve. The boardwalks are quite substantial and well-​maintained. The trail that leads around the wetlands to the river is less exciting; the Anacostia is a mess and is not much of a sight.
The surrounding neighborhood is pretty dilapidated and I’ve had things like an SUV tailgating me on an otherwise empty residential road and a homeless person sitting in front of the park entrance. A microcosm of what DC is like really; a nice landmark and everything else around it is badly in need of a better government to maintain it.
In any case, the park itself is well-​maintained, and is the only place to see a large wetland inside of the District.

Over 10 years in DC and I never visited. I found myself driving by yesterday and thought — when’s the next time it’ll be this nice out, I’ll be here, and I’ll have time to see it? So I came. I saw. I conquered. (Ok, maybe not conquered. I skipped the river trail.)
Upon parking, I traveled down a footpath toward official-​looking signs. Park Rangers stood at the ready to greet someone who was not me, but they greeted me anyway and told me where to go… left… toward the visitor center… I was wearing interview shoes, which were off by the time I left the visitor center. Harkening back to my youth in Vermont, I wandered around the whole place barefoot in my interview suit. The only real danger in doing this is stepping in the occasional chupacabra poop. Luckily, I didn’t.
As expected for an inner-​city green space, it’s easily navigated. Unexpected was how tranquil it felt. I needed that. I took pictures of bees collecting pollen, lilies, trees, marshes, mud, and just as I tried to get the turtle, he disappeared under the water :(.
It was a great afternoon. I hobbled back to the car, and as I got in, 5 neighborhood kids on bikes rode into the park. Outside of those kids, I saw a couple, a dad and his two kids, and a bird-​watcher. That’s it. Not so many people that you’re annoyed, not so few that you’re freaked out that you’ll be killed by a park-​based serial killer. Just right.
Best time to come: 2pm Tuesday, August. It’s practically all yours.

The Aquatic Garden’s marsh and flood plain are host to both wildlife and tourist alike. This is a landscape long forgotten as the Nation’s Capital went from flood plain to towering highways flooded with cars and smog. While an urban jungle surrounds this fortress, the wildlife and flood plain continue to enjoy a sort of fairytale in this swampy garden.
Could this have been what Native Americans enjoyed before Captain John Smith stepped foot onto this continent? Perhaps.
The Water Lilly & Lotus Flower Festival of 2013 was an interesting cultural and botanical experience. Visitors were treated to Asian and African performances and art with distinct Buddhist overtones abound.
There were thousands of lilies and lotus flowers as far as the eye could see. Dragonflies, butterflies, heron and egret were among the spectators checking out this zen-​like sanctuary. There were also huge horseflies that fed off the sweaty tourists trying to take a damn picture… calm…center…back…to…zen…happy review…
While the Kenilworth Park and Aquatic Gardens doesn’t have same grandeur of the National Arboretum, there are plenty of photogenic opportunities and good vibes coming at you from 360 degrees.
Om Mani Padme Hum
«Om, jewel in the lotus, hum.»

One of my favorites – a hidden gem, to be sure. Like many national parks in the area, it is free, but do check their hours before you come – with sequestration, they’ve been condensed.
We come to Kenilworth at least once a month in the summer: In June, water lilies bloom in early mornings (the blooms close up as heat settles around 10) and fuzzy goslings make their debut, July is the lotus season – not to be missed (third Saturday in July is the Lotus Festival, usually the height of lotus bloom time, a great event for kids), and in August the giant Victoria lilies make a brief appearance. When I first saw the garden one June morning, I was disappointed – it looked like several muddy pools with lots of leaves around, but do let this place seep into you. There is so much life all around, and the aquatic plants really are lovely. (Do come prepared for muddy paths.)
Past the waterlily and lotus pools is a raised promenade into the marsh, a glimpse of what DC used to look like before the city claimed this land. If you come early enough, you can see herons hunt for their breakfast, swallows zip through the air after invisible bugs, and red-​winged black birds inspect the cattails (bring binoculars if you like birds).
Other reviewers describe the area; I felt safe here in early mornings. We usually drive, and, yes, you do have to pass by a place that looks like a military facility or a prison with «Entry Prohibited» signs (I always forget to look up what that is). The garden’s parking lot and entrance look somewhat forlorn, but don’t let that discourage you – this is the «hidden» in «hidden gem.»
Here’s a glimpse of the park in June:
And this is July, when the lotus blooms: