Jardin Necitas

Overview

Jardin Necitas occupies a roughly 2,000-square-metre hilltop plot in Purok 5, Barangay Bagumbayan, on Bohol’s northeastern coast — the same municipality profiled as a working agricultural and fishing town with no dedicated tourist infrastructure of its own. The garden was built by Necitas Cubrado, Pilar’s mayor at the time, and her daughter Vanessa, who brought roughly 15,000 artificial tulips and 5,000 roses wired for LED illumination rather than living plants, each flower standing on a steel-bar stem instead of a root system. Construction ran to an estimated ₱10 million and took about two months to wire the lighting; the garden opened to the public on September 27, 2017, and drew more than 10,000 visitors in its opening weeks — a striking number for a town whose own destination profile records essentially no other visitor infrastructure.

What’s there

Visitors pass an entrance flanked by illuminated swan and flamingo figures, then rows of tulips and roses laid out so that, seen from the hilltop’s high point at night, they spell “I ❤ U”; 55 additional LED cherry-blossom figures are worked into the beds. Every bloom is artificial and wired for light rather than grown — the entire premise is after-dark photography rather than daytime botany, and visitor accounts from the garden’s opening years consistently recommend a night visit over a daytime one for that reason.

Practical info

Entrance was ₱30 per adult at opening, with a separate ₱1,000 package offered for prenuptial photo sessions — the garden’s most commonly cited use beyond casual sightseeing, alongside family day trips. Reported hours were 10:00 AM to 10:00 PM daily. [FACT NEEDED: entrance fee, hours, and current operating status have not been reconfirmed by any source dated later than 2018 — the most recent review found (TripAdvisor) still only carries five reviews, all from 2017–2018. Verify current rates and whether the garden is still operating before publishing visitor-facing details.]

Getting there

Pilar sits on Bohol’s northeastern Camotes Sea coast, roughly 76 kilometres from Tagbilaran City. The practical route is by bus toward Talibon or San Miguel via Carmen (see Pilar’s destination page for Dao Terminal departure details), then a local tricycle from the poblacion up to the Bagumbayan hilltop site. [FACT NEEDED: exact tricycle fare and travel time from the poblacion to the garden gate.]

Notes

No coordinates are set here — no source found gives a GPS pin for the garden site itself, only the barangay-level address (Purok 5, Bagumbayan). Sources: Jardin Necitas, Pilar Glowing Garden in Bohol, Philippine Primer, accessed 2026-07-29 (address, ownership, entrance fee ₱30, hours 10 AM–10 PM, flower/figure counts); Garden glows on a hilltop, Inquirer, accessed 2026-07-29 (construction cost ₱10 million, opening date September 27 2017, visitor count, “I ❤ U” layout, 2,000 sqm plot, ₱1,000 prenup package, distance from Tagbilaran); Discover the Jardin Necitas – Pilar Glowing Garden, Project Lupad, accessed 2026-07-29 (Purok 5/Bagumbayan address, described as one of Bohol’s newer attractions as of a November 2020 update, no operating-status update since); Jardin Necitas, TripAdvisor, accessed 2026-07-29 (4.2/5, 5 reviews, all 2017–2018, ranked #2 of 2 things to do in Pilar — confirming Pilar’s thin tourism base and the staleness of visitor-facing data here).