Banbi Glasshouse, Gangwon Provincial Hwamokwon (강원도립화목원 반비식물원)

The Gangwon Provincial Botanic Garden, known as Hwamokwon, is a public garden of Gangwon Province, run by its forest research institute. According to the tourism page of the city of Chuncheon, work began in 1996 and was completed in 1999, the year it opened; Wikidata gives 20 May 1999. The site has been listed since 6 March 2003 in the Korea Forest Service's register of public arboreta, and Korean Wikipedia, citing a 2012 article, reports its designation as a forest genetic resources management body, a first for a public arboretum in the country.

The Banbi glasshouse: a press article of 5 October 2011 already describes it as a glass house with an automated system, meant to display, conserve and study native plants, so it existed by then. The area attributed to the garden is about 24,000 pyeong (close to 7.9 ha) in that 2011 article and 12 ha in the 2025 forestry register.

The Banbi glasshouse is described in 2011 as a glass house with an automated system. Wikidata associates an area of 1,879 m² with the entry, far smaller than the whole garden and consistent with the building's outline in OpenStreetMap, a polygon added in 2025 covering about 2,030 m².

The interior is organised into four themed areas: warm-temperate plants (난대식물원), ornamental foliage plants (관엽식물원), succulents (다육식물원) and an ecological observation area (생태관찰원). In the same Banbi section, a 15 m observation tower reached by an iron staircase gives an overview of the garden; the 2011 article recommends it for working out the visiting route.

Four areas share the glasshouse: the warm-temperate zone, ornamental foliage plants, succulents and ecological observation. A tourism page presents it as a warm shelter where greenery can be found in the depths of winter.

Across the garden, the 2025 forestry register records 1,832 species. Another tourism page speaks of 1,827 kinds and about 85,000 plants, including 129 rare species, 49 endemic ones and 136 vulnerable to climate change. A conservation garden is in fact devoted to the latter, alongside themed gardens of medicinal plants, aquatic plants and rock plants.

The glasshouse stands at the beginning of the route, just past the entrance, near the garden's mascot, a bear named Banbi. The neighbouring observation tower allows a view of the whole park before setting out; beside it stand a plane tree more than a hundred years old and 30 m tall, and a row of metasequoias, according to the 2011 article.

A tourism page promotes the glasshouse for winter, when it offers a little greenery. The garden also stages wildflower exhibitions and a chrysanthemum festival, which the press was covering in October 2011. It has themed gardens (nine according to the city's page, about twenty according to a 2011 article) and a forest museum with a 3D screening room, enough to extend the visit beyond the glasshouse.