CKS Shilin Residence Chrysanthemum Festival: Dates, Tickets & Venue (Taipei)

A presidential garden given over to chrysanthemums

Every late autumn, a former president’s garden fills with chrysanthemums. For just over two weeks, the Chiang Kai-shek Shilin Residence moves potted blooms onto its lawns, its path edges and its garden terraces. Chiang Kai-shek and Soong Mei-ling lived here from 1950 until his death in 1975. The grounds sit against the green hills on the northern side of Taipei’s Shilin District.

The setting does half the work. You pass clipped hedges and symmetrical beds in the formal European-style garden, then reach a Chinese garden laid out around a pond and pavilion. In festival weeks the colours are the ones chrysanthemums come in: yellow, white, bronze, rust and purple, massed together in pots.

Seventeen days: 27 November to 13 December 2026

The 2026 festival runs from November 27 to December 13. That covers three weekends, and the blooms are at their fullest in the opening stretch. The event is organised under the Taipei City Government, which publishes dates and visitor information on its official site.

On tickets: the gardens of the residence have traditionally been open to walk into freely. The main residence house is a separate, ticketed attraction, and its current price is posted at the house entrance and on the official site. For the flowers alone, most people simply walk in from Fulin Road.

Taipei in late November and December is mild but damp. Days usually sit somewhere between the mid-teens and low twenties Celsius, and the northeast monsoon brings frequent drizzle. Locals keep a compact umbrella in their bag at this time of year.

Cascades, domes and single giant heads

Chrysanthemum shows in the Chinese tradition are about training as much as growing. Plants are shaped over many months, and a few classic forms turn up again and again in displays of this kind:

• Cascade chrysanthemums: small-flowered plants trained to spill downward in a long, tapering curtain, often set on raised stands or walls.
• Thousand-bloom domes: one plant coaxed into hundreds of heads arranged on a wide frame, the showpiece of many exhibitions.
• Single-stem exhibition blooms: one large flower per stem, often staked in rows so you can compare petal shapes, from tight balls to spidery, quill-like spikes.
• Topiary and shaped displays: blooms packed onto frames to form figures, arches or lettering.

Take a moment with the spider and quill types up close. The petals are tubes, and in cool, overcast light the colours hold without washing out. That suits the drizzly December weather.

From Shilin Station to the Fulin Road gate

The MRT is the simplest way in. Take the red Tamsui–Xinyi Line to Shilin Station (R16) and leave by Exit 2. Then walk east along Zhongzheng Road for roughly 10–15 minutes to the junction with Fulin Road, where the residence entrance sits.

Zhishan Station (R17), one stop further north, is also within walking distance. Several city buses run along Zhongzheng Road, and taxi drivers know the residence as Shilin Guandi (士林官邸). YouBike docks near both stations make the short ride an easy option on a dry day.

Walking the residence grounds

The flowers are spread across the grounds rather than kept in one hall. Expect to wander. Beyond the festival beds, these parts of the estate are worth your time:

• The formal garden: geometric beds and hedges, and the most photographed backdrop for the chrysanthemums.
• The Chinese garden: pond, rockwork and a pavilion, quieter in character.
• The rose garden: out of its main season in December (the residence holds a separate rose festival in spring), but still a pleasant walk.
• Victory Chapel: the small church where the Chiang family worshipped, set among trees on the grounds.
• The main residence: the ticketed house, kept with its period furnishings, if you want the history behind the garden.

The gardens alone take about an hour at a steady pace. Add another hour if you go inside the house.

Chrysanthemum-season manners at Shilin Guandi

This is a family outing for many Taipei residents, and the etiquette is gentle but real. If you want to ask for directions in Mandarin, the event is 士林官邸菊展 (Shìlín Guāndǐ Jú Zhǎn).

• Paying: an EasyCard covers the MRT, buses and YouBike. Convenience stores near Shilin Station take it too.
• Stay on the paths: displays are set close to walkways, and stepping into a bed for a photo is frowned upon.
• Photos: people generally take turns at the popular frames and step aside quickly. Bulky tripods in narrow paths draw looks.
• Queues: Taiwanese queues are orderly and single-file, at the house entrance as much as at the MRT.
• Timing: weekends draw families and photographers, so weekday visits are usually calmer. In any garden show, the hours just after opening tend to be quieter than the afternoon.

Leave the flowers on their stems. Picking even a fallen bloom from a display bed is treated as poor form.

After the flowers: an evening in Shilin

Shilin rewards staying on. The National Palace Museum, home to one of the world’s great collections of Chinese imperial art, is a short bus or taxi ride from Shilin Station. A morning among the chrysanthemums and an afternoon with the jade and bronzes make a full day without much travel.

When dusk comes, ride one stop south to Jiantan Station (R15). Shilin Night Market, Taipei’s largest, starts just across the road. Its food stalls and basement food court are an easy follow-on after a cool afternoon in the gardens.