Buskett Gardens, the only sizeable woodland on Malta, lies in a sheltered valley two kilometres east of Dingli village. The Knights of St John laid it out as a hunting ground in the seventeenth century. Today it is a quiet public park of olive groves, citrus orchards, tall stone pines and Aleppo pines, mature carobs and a few surviving native holm oaks.
It is the favourite picnic spot of Maltese families, especially in late summer when the gardens host the Imnarja folk festival on 28-29 June — wine, rabbit stew and traditional folk-music duels run through the night. The fortified Verdala Palace at the top of the gardens, built in 1586 as a summer residence for the Grand Master, can only be viewed from outside.