Quinta da Boa Vista, Estate garden in Funchal, Portugal

Quinta da Boa Vista is a walled stair-terrace garden in the Santa Maria Maior parish of Funchal, on sloping ground above the central and western parts of the city. Its terraces are watered by the levada irrigation system, and the garden holds one of Madeira's most important orchid collections, with broad-leaved plants edging the beds.

The quinta was built in the late 18th to early 19th century and first appears on Trigo's 1910 Planta Roteiro Cidade do Funchal. It served as a market garden and then a flower farm before the Garton family acquired it in the 1860s. In the 1960s, after retiring from the Royal Air Force, Group Captain Cecil Garton OBE and his wife Elizabeth Hera 'Betty' Garton turned it into an orchid garden; Betty brought part of her father Sir William Cooke's collection to Madeira.

The garden's name, Quinta da Boa Vista ("estate of the good view"), matches its hillside position above Funchal. Cecil Garton, a retired Royal Air Force group captain, and his wife Betty, daughter of orchid breeder Sir William Cooke, ran it as a working orchid collection; Betty brought part of her father's plants from England. Their son Patrick, an Oxford botany graduate, still manages it.

The garden is located on Rua Lombo da Boa Vista 19A in Funchal and is easy to reach by car or taxi. Wear comfortable shoes since the many staircases and changes in elevation between terraces require steady walking.

The current manager is Patrick Garton, an Oxford University botany graduate who carries on the family's horticultural legacy across multiple generations. His expertise has made the place a reference point for orchid growers and collectors beyond Madeira.