A fifty-year experiment
When architect Geoffrey Bawa purchased the 25-acre Lunuganga estate in 1949, it was a derelict rubber plantation. The landscape was a monoculture, exhausted by its colonial-era use for cinnamon and then rubber production. Bawa spent the next five decades transforming it not into a conventional garden, but into a series of outdoor rooms and controlled vistas—an experimental ground for his ideas on "tropical modernism". This long-term project involved extensive earth moving, the clearing of rubber trees, and the thoughtful introduction and cultivation of a wide variety of plants to create a landscape that was both highly designed and ecologically functional.
The core principle was to work with the existing environment. Bawa's design integrates the natural topography of two hills and the Dedduwa Lake, which borders the property, into the garden's structure. Instead of imposing a foreign design, he created a mosaic of microclimates. The landscape merges elements of European Renaissance gardens, English landscaping, and Japanese garden art with the wildness of the Sri Lankan jungle. This careful manipulation of space, light, and vegetation supports its ecological success.
Engineered for biodiversity
The garden's ecological value stems directly from its structural diversity. Bawa created varied habitats, including terraced hillsides, marshy ponds, dense undergrowth, and open paddy fields. This complexity provides more ecological niches than the surrounding agricultural lands. Over half of the plants in the garden are indigenous species that would have already existed on the land, which Bawa chose to retain and work around. The collection today contains over 300 native and exotic plant species, including more than 30 that are considered endangered in Sri Lanka, such as a native coffee species and the valuable agarwood tree.
This intentional planting and habitat creation directly supports a wider range of fauna. Recent biodiversity studies have begun to formally catalogue the life within the garden. A 2023 study by the University of Peradeniya identified 43 angiosperm species from 33 plant families, six of which are endemic to Sri Lanka. The Lunuganga Trust also manages two islands in the adjacent lake, Honduwa and Appaladuwa, which Bawa set aside for wildlife protection in the 1960s. Honduwa Island now is a sanctuary for a breeding population of the critically endangered Sri Lankan hog deer (Axis porcinus). An initial population of eight deer has grown to 32, with plans for eventual reintroduction into the wild. The islands also provide habitat for the Indian Pangolin, Fishing Cat, and Rusty Spotted Cat.