A bamboo pavilion at Poomjai Garden framed by hanging Spanish moss, overlooking a moss-covered canal. A longtail boat approaching the Giant Buddha and white chedi at Wat Paknam, Bangkok. Hands dipping skewered Thai lookchoup desserts into a wheel of colorful dye bowls at a Poomjai Garden workshop. Two workshop hosts standing beside finished tie-dyed cloths and bowls of natural dye at Poomjai Garden. A visitor climbing a coconut palm on a traditional bamboo ladder at a community coconut farm near Poomjai Garden. A guide leading a group through Poomjai Garden's permaculture beds and hanging Spanish moss.

Chom Thong, Bangkok · Eco-Cultural Heritage Garden

Welcome to Poomjai Garden

Workshops · Natura Café · Boat Tours

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Beyond the orchard

More ways to spend a day here

Poomjai Garden is also a TMVS (Thailand MICE Venue Standard)-certified sustainable MICE venue by TCEB — a cultural, historical setting for private events and meetings in Bangkok.

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The founding family gathered under Poomjai Garden's century-old lychee tree, the same tree the garden was built to keep alive.

The heart of the garden

‘Bang Khun Thian lychee’ is the breath and the reason this place exists.

Trace the history of ‘Bangkok’ and ‘Thonburi’ back far enough — centuries before Queen Victoria ever took the throne on the other side of the world — and water was where everything began, and where everything centered. Back then, the Bang Khun Thian canal wasn't just a route for getting around; it was the great artery that stitched homes, temples, orchards, schools, and communities into a single, inseparable whole. The lush lychee orchards lining its banks were this neighborhood's way of life and its identity. Today, our garden is one of the few places left still carrying that same breath forward, a hundred years on.

Even now, as time has moved on and the old trees no longer flower and fruit as heavily as they once did, the value of this land has only rooted itself deeper. Every inch we've built here exists to embrace and honor these original lychee trees. We didn't build something new to replace the past — we chose instead to keep this place alive, so our roots could keep breathing alongside the water that has always run through them.

How the orchard shaped the garden
A raised bamboo pavilion seating area at Poomjai Garden overlooking a moss-draped canal garden.

The Living Museum

A living classroom for nature-based learning

As green space in Bangkok slowly fades, and daily life drifts further from simplicity, Poomjai Garden has chosen to stand firm and protect these values. We're not just a conservation area — we're a living, working ‘organic Thai garden’ that actually feeds people.

Following the old philosophy of ‘eat, then plant; plant, then eat,’ this abundance fills the garden with the plants of a Thai kitchen: wild betel leaf, kaffir lime, lemongrass, galangal, bitter orange, tamarind, noni, holy basil, sweet basil, coral tree leaves, bilimbi, finger root, and ginger. These aren't just ornamental plants — they're safe, real produce, harvested fresh and sent straight from the garden's beds to Natura’s kitchen, every single day.

Because for us, the meaning of a ‘Thai garden’ was never just a landscaping style — it's ‘sustainability,’ rooted deep in how we think and how we live, from the very beginning.

Before it was a garden

The canal this neighborhood was built around

Long before Poomjai Garden opened, the Bang Khun Thian canal was already the center of daily life here. Its story reaches back to the early Rattanakosin era, when canals were dug across Thonburi for raised-bed orchard farming. A floating market ran along the water, homes stood on stilts, and boats loaded and unloaded at the Wat Sai pavilion. Bangkok once moved by water more than by road — and this stretch of it still remembers that.

Archival photo of the Wat Sai pavilion on the canal, with boats loaded with produce and a mother holding a baby standing on the deck.
The Wat Sai pavilion — once the most famous floating market in the country, and the trading heart of the neighborhood and of old Bangkok.
Archival photo of a floating market on the canal, vendors under blue umbrellas in boats.
The floating market that once ran along this stretch of water.
Archival photo of wooden boats loaded with pineapples and produce at a floating market stall.
Produce moved by boat, before the roads came.
Archival photo of a wooden house on stilts over the canal, with a man rowing a small boat toward it.
Homes were raised on stilts — Bangkok was a city of water.

Now

The family behind Poomjai Garden today, wearing traditional hats and holding freshly picked lychee branches under an orchard tree.
The family who still tend Poomjai Garden's orchard today.
A gardener holding three large jackfruits harvested from a tree at Poomjai Garden.
Still a working garden — harvest by harvest.

We didn't build a museum.
We kept a garden alive
and let people walk through it.

What holds the garden together

Three roots

Local ท้องถิ่น

A community-based model, not a solo operation — boat drivers, gardeners, coconut growers, monks and temples all have a stake in what happens here. We still prioritize what's nearby first, but the same model now connects us with small farming communities across the country, so the ingredients on your plate stay as fresh as the ones grown a few steps away.

Sustainability ความยั่งยืนที่จับต้องได้

Not a slogan — a practice you can see: composting beds, canal irrigation, a harvest that follows the season instead of the calendar. Sustainability visitors can learn and take home.

Inclusivity การเปิดรับทุกคน

A living heritage held open to everyone — students on a field trip, neighbors on a Sunday walk, and the families who have farmed this land for generations.

A lychee tree at Poomjai Garden, heavy with clusters of ripe fruit.

Visit

Come sit under the orchard

Where
Jomthong Soi 19 Yaek 18 (ซอยวัดสีสุก, จอมทอง 19 แยก 18), Bangkok
Hours
Everyday, 10:00 – 18:00
Sat – Sun & public holidays, 9:00 – 18:00
Get directions

As featured in

  • AFAR
  • National Geographic
  • Bangkok Post
  • BK Magazine
  • Read the Cloud
  • บ้านและสวน
  • Gourmet & Cuisine
  • BLT Bangkok
  • a day
  • มติชน

Practical sustainability

Sustainability you can touch, not just read about

Every part of the garden is a small, working demonstration: rainwater feeds the canal beds, kitchen scraps return to the orchard as compost, and produce is served only when it's actually in season. We'd rather show visitors one working compost bed than print a page of promises.

See what grows here
A gardener high in a tree at Poomjai Garden, harvesting lychees by hand into a woven basket using traditional bamboo poles.