Wildflower Hill in Bonghwa — native autumn flowers to 18 October

An entire hillside in Bonghwa, in the mountains of north-eastern Gyeongsangbuk-do, has been planted with the wild flowers that bloom in a Korean autumn. The Korea Arboreta and Gardens Institute announced on 21 September that Wildflower Taste, an autumn native-plant special exhibition, would run on Wildflower Hill at Baekdudaegan National Arboretum from 19 September to 18 October. The month-long run is timed to the flowering of species such as Tatarian aster and Korean daisy, which peak in this part of the calendar and then are gone.

What is actually on the hill

There is no exhibition room. Wildflower Hill itself is the exhibition, and visiting means walking its paths. The institute says the hill has been filled with around 200,000 plants of 15 native species for the run. Only two of the 15 were named in the announcement — Tatarian aster and Korean daisy — and the remaining thirteen have not been published.

• Tatarian aster (개미취) — a daisy-family native that flowers in pale violet clusters. Named in the announcement as one of the two headline species.
• Korean daisy (구절초) — an autumn native opening white and fading to pale pink. It is the flower whitening the hill in the photograph above.
• The other thirteen species — the institute says the planting mixes familiar wild flowers with natives most people walk past without noticing, but has not released the full list.

Which days it is actually open

The run lasts a month, and the arboretum shuts on four days inside it. It closes every Monday, and on the day of Seollal and Chuseok; when a Monday falls on a public holiday, the closure moves to the following day. Applied to the autumn 2026 calendar that produces exactly four closed dates. The one that catches people out is 6 October, a Tuesday: 5 October is a substitute public holiday for National Foundation Day, so the Monday closure slides by a day. The arboretum's own festival notice states the 6 October closure explicitly.

What it costs and whether you need to book

Neither the press release nor the arboretum's visitor information mentions a separate charge or a booking step for the exhibition. Wildflower Hill sits inside the ordinary visiting area, so you buy a normal admission ticket and walk in. That is KRW 5,000 for adults, KRW 4,000 for teenagers and KRW 3,000 for children, with KRW 1,000 off each for groups of 20 or more. Entry is free if you are 6 or under, 65 or over, disabled or a person of national merit, on production of documents at the ticket office. Tickets are sold at the visitor centre desk and at self-service kiosks, or online in advance; the online route is Korean-language only, so for most visitors buying at the gate is simpler.

Come in early October and a festival overlaps

The 2026 Bongja Festival runs at the same arboretum from 1 to 11 October, right through the middle of the exhibition. The name is a contraction of 'Bonghwa native flower festival', and this year's subtitle translates roughly as 'Savouring the world'. Plants of the Elsholtzia genus are displayed on the entrance plaza alongside performances, hands-on activities and a flea market. The part that matters to a visitor is the admission: the arboretum is free to enter for the whole festival. Go between 1 and 11 October and Wildflower Taste costs nothing.

If it rains, there is an indoor show

The weakness of an outdoor exhibition is the weather. A special exhibition called Forest Open Today runs in the second-floor special exhibition room of the visitor centre over the same period — from 22 September 2026 to 30 June 2027, so it covers the whole of Wildflower Taste. It presents the arboretum's work of conserving seeds and recording forests under climate change as a 'forest village' story told through the arboretum's own characters. It is a place to redirect to on a wet day or when the hill is too much walking.

The hill is not the whole site

Baekdudaegan National Arboretum occupies one of the largest arboretum sites in Asia, with the visitor centre, display glasshouses, a tiger forest and the entrance-plaza gardens spread widely across it. Seeing only Wildflower Hill leaves half a day unused. The tiger forest, home to Siberian tigers, opens later and closes earlier than the arboretum itself — 10 am to 5 pm in the March-to-October season. If you arrive late in the afternoon, go to the tiger forest first and walk the hill on the way back.

Getting there, and what to expect on the day

Bonghwa is a long way from anywhere. By car it is about three hours from Seoul via Punggi interchange, two from Daegu and four from Busan; the arboretum asks drivers to approach from the Chunyang side rather than Mulya, which is steep and full of tight bends, and the Jusillyeong pass is closed in heavy winter snow. By rail from Seoul, take a train from Seoul or Cheongnyangni station to Yeongju, then a bus on to Chunyang; from Dongdaegu station there are trains directly to Chunyang station. From the Chunyang public bus stop, local bus 51 or 53 reaches the arboretum, and a taxi from Chunyang is the reliable alternative if the bus times do not line up. Allow the better part of a day each way and treat this as an overnight rather than a day trip. On site, expect Korean-language plant labels and signage: nothing about this exhibition has been published in English, the ticketing and visitor-information pages are Korean only, and the institute's English website covers the organisation rather than visiting. Because the exhibition is a planted hillside rather than a display to read, that matters less here than it would in a museum — and because there is nothing to book, the language of the booking system never comes up.