Hidden deep in Benguet Mountains is an outdoor Green Living Room featuring 24 beautiful landscapes inspired by the best gardens in the World.
The Zen garden and concentric garden are places to contemplate and meditate. The favorite of many visitors is the mirror garden where they can have creative photography of themselves.
Aside from the Award winning flowers from All American Selections (AAS), other materials like rocks, twigs, sand, cement, pebbles, even strings and mirrors are artistically used to design the 24 gardens and ponds located inside a 3-hectare mountain resort called Mount Costa.
It has 5,500 meters walking trails with paved or graveled horizontal trails and senorita step rises on vertical trails.
Park designer Pat Acosta said “There is a total of 24 gardens initially designed inside the 3-hectare compound.” He said they “pick up the best garden designs and put them in the park for Filipinos to get a taste of the best gardens in the world.”
Some of the designs, however, are their own like the Spectrum Garden designed by her daughter Vita Acosta who finished Fine Arts.
Acosta, a horticulturist said this family property along the Pico-Lamtang Road in La Trinidad was bought in 1978 by their parents Col. Voltaire Acosta and Cleotilde to develop as a strawberry farm. However, due to a virus that plagued the farm, it was discontinued. Sometime in 2015, the Acostas arrived at a notion that will become a game-changer in the tourism landscape of the Cordillera.
Mount Costa has other amenities like park benches, a playground, clean toilets, food kiosks and picnic tables. With the exception of baby food items, outside food and beverages are not allowed inside the gardens.
“This is a place where one can take all the time they need to stroll and reflect,” said Acosta. However, he said the place is not for the general audience but only for those who really appreciate nature and designs.
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With the soft opening entrance fee of P350.00 that will likely to increase on the grand launching this May, it is indeed not affordable to everyone. But that amount is small to someone who is looking for inspiration and ideas.
Mount Costa was derived from the owners’ family name and being developed by three generation of Acostas from the Baby boomers to the Generation X and Y.
“Mount Costa serves as Voltaire and Cleotilde’s legacy, perseverance and the very essence of the Cordileras where nature prospers together with nature,” said Acosta.
TheAcostas are cousins of comedian and author Garry Lising.
This article was first published by ABS-CBN News