Modern botanical gardens are not just outstanding collections of plants, they are real masterpieces of landscape art. Styles and trends, traditional techniques and modern design solutions are harmoniously combined here. Many botanical gardens have been able to go beyond scientific activities and have become attractive tourism sites. The most famous of them are visited annually by millions of admirers of beauty, and the best landscape designers never cease to amaze the public. Today we propose to take a virtual trip and visit the 10 best botanical gardens in the world.
Kyoto Botanical Garden, Japan
Gardens in Japan are real works of art, a world of harmony and amazing natural beauty. The Kyoto Botanical Garden is home to about 12,000 plant species. This is a fairly young garden by Japanese standards, which was opened in 1924. In addition to the traditional oriental gardens of irises, peonies, bamboo and lotus, Kyoto Park has an impressive European-style rose garden and many other plants.
Kolkata Botanical Garden, India
This garden was founded in 1787 by a British military man to grow spices and other exotic plants for sale. It subsequently developed into a large botanical garden, which today is home to about 12,000 plant species. Most of the garden is more reminiscent of a tropical forest than a pompous park with exquisite landscape design, everything is so harmonious here. It is this naturalness that attracts many tourists to the garden.
Voices of Russian history
View of the Laboratory Building of the Main Botanical Garden of the Russian Academy of Sciences named after. Tsitsina and pond. Photo: Shutterstock.com
Part of the panorama of the Botanical Garden. Photo: Shutterstock.com
The building of the laboratory building of the Main Botanical Garden of the Russian Academy of Sciences named after. Tsitsina. Photo: Photobank Moscow-Live.ru
Memorial plaque. Photo: Photobank Moscow-Live.ru
In itself, the Main Botanical Garden of the Russian Academy of Sciences is a young institution. Next year he will turn only 75 - you must admit, not so much for such an impressive landscape ensemble. Its official date of birth is considered to be April 14, 1945, and its “father” is Academician Nikolai Vasilyevich Tsitsin, who became its first director (the garden still bears his name). It was from this time that strange plants brought from different parts of the world began to appear in the capital.
And yet it cannot be said that in the middle of the last century the botanical garden appeared out of nowhere. In fact, scientists and gardeners received a real gift - pristine forests, ready to accept new “overseas” neighbors. And although some plants in the garden have only been growing for a few decades, the local forests are the oldest. The first mention of them was found in the chronicles of 1584. Walking along the quiet alleys of the garden, try to feel all the grandeur of these places - by the way, Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich himself, the father of Peter I, once hunted here.
It is curious that the original plan for the botanical garden included a much larger territory, including the lands of modern VDNKh (
Royal Botanic Garden Sydney, Australia
This park was founded in 1816 and today occupies about 30 hectares in the center of Sydney. There are 8,900 plant species collected here, and also the oldest trees in Australia, which are almost 200 years old. There are greenhouses, sculptural compositions and collections of plants, both Australian and imported from other continents. The Royal Botanic Garden is very popular among tourists; more than 3 million people visit it annually.
"Drunk Ate"
The alley owes its unusual name to the bizarre and crooked shape of the trees. The fir trees seem to stand at an angle, due to which a feeling of illusoryness of what is happening is created. This is all explained simply - over time, the trees cannot hold the trunk in a vertical position and begin to lean.
“Drunk ate”, © Konstantin Andreevich
Sochi Arboretum, Russia
The Sochi Arboretum was founded at the end of the 19th century and has an area of 49 hectares. This is a unique combination of subtropical plants and park architecture. There is a collection of palm trees, oaks, pine trees, and rhododendrons. The arboretum is located on the mountainside and its structure is reminiscent of French terraced gardens, and its top can be reached by cable car.
Garden of Europe, or Keukenhof, Lisse, Netherlands
This botanical garden is unique in that it is open to the public only in the spring, during the flowering of the bulbous plants. Many varieties of tulips, daffodils, crocuses, and hyacinths are collected here, for which thousands of tourists come here every year. This botanical garden was founded in 1857 and covers an area of 32 hectares. Exhibitions and sales of bulbous flowers are held annually in Keukenhof.
Botanical Garden of Rouen, France
This magnificent garden, open to the public, was founded in 1841. There is a unique collection of fuchsias, as well as roses, daylilies, irises, medicinal plants, and there are several greenhouses with tropical plants. The botanical garden of Rouen is home to more than 5,000 plant species and covers an area of 10 hectares.
Royal Botanic Gardens Kew, London, UK
This botanical garden was created in 1759. Not long ago it celebrated its 250th anniversary and was included in the list of UNESCO World Heritage Sites. The scientific team of the garden includes more than 250 employees, and more than 70,000 plants grow on its territory. The garden is incredibly popular with tourists and Londoners alike, and is visited by over a million visitors each year.
Memorial Alley
This alley will be of interest to history buffs, as it was created by famous political and cultural figures who visited this country. One of the trees was planted by Yuri Gagarin, as evidenced by a memorial plaque. Garden workers say that after the death of the astronaut, the tree began to wither and even almost died.
Residents of the garden, © Konstantin Andreevich
Montreal Botanical Garden, Canada
Founded in 1931, this botanical garden is perhaps the most recognizable in the world. Thanks to its original compositions and sculptures from living plants, the Montreal Botanical Garden has become very popular among tourists visiting Quebec.
Here, on an area of 75 hectares, about 21 thousand species and varieties of plants grow. The garden has several landscaped areas: a Chinese garden, an English garden, a garden of roses, rhododendrons, a greenhouse with orchids and much more.
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Gallery
The site itself is over a hundred years old, so it can easily be called a family estate. The garden is already over forty, and at the same time it is constantly changing. Only the pond did not change its location - previously the beds were watered from it, and when this need was no longer necessary, it was made decorative: with a beautiful willow and loosestrife on the shore, rare nymphaeum and water lilies that decorate the water surface.
However, the main attraction in the current appearance of the garden is the fence. It is made according to a simple but reasonable principle: do not be lazy, grow summer gardens and take care of the attached flower beds from indoor plants. You rarely see such fuchsias and pelargoniums anywhere! And everything is very neat, cozy, with no feeling of kitsch or deliberateness, as is often the case with flower beds in a “country” style.
Four Seasons Garden, Walsall, UK
In 1992, Dr. Tony Newton and his wife Marie decided that they were already pretty tired of the garden that they got with the house they bought. They got down to business, and the new garden became one of the most unusual and popular in England. To make it spectacular all year round, the couple selected plants with a very long decorative period. These are mainly trees and shrubs, many of which are cut and pinched.
The garden consists of three parts. The upper area with a lawn and formal, very contrasting plantings is the calling card of the couple. In the “jungle”, or average garden with a pagoda, exotic plants grow: bamboos, ferns, palms and bananas. The lower forest garden is located around a large handmade stream.
Sezincote Garden, Moreton-in-Marsh, UK
Among the hills of the Cotswolds, north-west of London, lies an outlandish Indian-style estate for these parts. It was built at the beginning of the 19th century by the family of Colonel John Cockerell, who served in Bengal, and the Sezinkot garden was founded at the same time. It was badly damaged during the war, and the modern plantings were restored and modified by the famous gardener and designer Graham Thomas, together with the owner of the garden, Lady Kleinworth, who often visited India. The southern garden, with an octagonal pond and narrow canals lined with yew trees, replicates the traditional formal paradise gardens of the reign of Emperor Babur in India.
In the northern part of the estate there is a romantic secluded water garden. Primroses bloom all around in the spring. The banks of the pond are planted with cherries, apple trees and high aralia, and along the edges of the picturesque stream grow decorative perennials (daylilies, irises, hostas, Rogersias, lysichitons), as well as woody plants (purple trees, dogwoods and maples), coloring the garden with bright colors in the fall.
Russian Water Gardens Park, Moscow region, Russia
These wonderful water landscapes can be seen in Tarasovka near Moscow. The Russian Water Gardens Park was created in 1992 by biologist Alexander Marchenko - initially it was a farm for growing ornamental aquatic plants. Today it has turned into a garden and park space of amazing beauty, where delicate water lilies collected by the owner from all over the world are grown in natural and artificial reservoirs.
From hundreds of varieties of water lilies over the years, about 40 of the most decorative and, most importantly, resistant to the climatic conditions of the middle zone were selected. In addition to nymphs, the assortment includes many other coastal and aquatic plants: marsh and Japanese irises, egg capsules, butterburs, arrowheads, susaki, cyperus, thalia and many others.
Garden of Andrey and Elena Lysikov, Moscow region, Russia
A cozy garden in the vicinity of the village of Velyaminovo, 60 km from Moscow, took more than one year to create. Now there is a nice shady garden on the site, in which grow buzulniks and dicentra, ostrich and kupena, podophyllum and scopolia, astilboides and dharmer. The logical conclusion was a recreation area with a pond, a central lawn, large-scale mixborders, a system of low retaining walls laid with dry masonry from blocks of Domodedovo limestone - ground cover plants “live” there.
A few years ago, a flat rock garden appeared in front of the porch of the house, combining into a single whole a small rocky hill and a small collection of coniferous plants brought by the owner of the beautiful kingdom, Andrei Lysikov, at different times from different places. There is also a secluded corner in the garden with a pond, where the backdrop is a prickly spruce sitting on the edge of the plot, which is formed over many years in the form of a rounded bush, as well as plantings of barberry, Rogersia, Darmer and ferns.
Glen Chantry Garden, Witham, UK
Wal and Sue Staines, the owners of this garden, have transformed almost one and a half hectares of territory into a real blooming paradise over the forty years of its existence. The design of the garden is emphatically elegant and at the same time very informal, with lawn paths skirting lush mixborders with rare and rather unusual perennials.
In spring, bulbs bloom brightly and abundantly here: tulips, daffodils, hyacinths, as well as precious “treasures” of the shady garden and early alpines. Summer begins with a variety of milkweeds, variegated foliage plants, irises, oriental poppies and ornamental onions. Autumn is given over to cereals, perennials with beautiful colors and fruits. In addition, the garden has two ponds, a large rock garden and interesting themed corners - for example, a white garden.
Robert Hoeck Garden, Schwoich, Austria
This garden is located in and is notable for its rich collection of aquilegias (or columbine plants), which Robert has been collecting for many years. Flower beds, lawns and vegetable gardens occupy about 20 acres. Sad has already turned ten, but he looks much older. Probably because the owner likes plants with a “wild” character that spread by self-seeding: Cumbrian meconopsis, geraniums, aquilegias - there are many of them here, and their independence borders on arbitrariness. Robert likes to combine aquilegias with bearded irises - they bloom at the same time and have a similar range of colors. There is also a separate mixborder for plants with variegated and colored leaves - an unusual and bright solution for lovers of variegation.
Wollerton Old Hall Garden, Wollerton, UK
This traditional English garden is set around a 16th-century house. Linearity is perhaps the most important design element of this corner. Straight lines are repeated again and again, embodied in four materials: yew, beech, oak and stone slabs. The regular part of the garden is divided according to the principle of intersecting whist: three in the north-south direction and three in the east-west direction. Color is very important in the garden, where perennials play first fiddle.
The main mixborder shimmers with a palette from dark blue to soft yellow. The moist soil of a well garden allows for the use of white, apricot, blue and soft yellow. The dry garden is rich in bright reds, oranges and hot yellows with balancing pops of blue and cool shades of purple. Roses bloom in almost all the green rooms of this garden, and one of them is even named after him.
Long Barn, Sevenoaks, UK
The writer Vita Sackville-West made history not only of literature, but also of gardening: she created the most famous English garden - Sissinghurst. But her first garden, Long Barn, deserves no less attention. Exactly a century ago, Vita and her husband bought a rickety 14th-century house in a London suburb and laid out a garden.
Its most striking element is a row planting of two dozen clipped specimens of yew 'Fastigiata'. The garden is based on a “cellular” structure and terracing. Wide lawns give a feeling of great space. The south side of the house has white and spring gardens, while the east side opens onto an intricately patterned boxwood parterre. The Dutch garden, located on the lower terrace, is distinguished by lush mixborders. Current owners Rebecca and Lars Lemonius bring their love of flowers and respect for its rich history to the Long Barn.
Jacobstuin, Oestrum, The Netherlands
In this garden, ornamental grasses are of paramount importance. Garden owner Jaap de Vries aims to find a balance between natural style plantings in the spirit of the famous Dutch designer Piet Oudolf and prairie flower beds like those created by Cassian Schmidt in Germany. The difference between these styles is that in the prairies, ornamental grasses play a much larger role.
The use of long-lived and deep-rooted “warm-season” plants of the North American prairies determines the peak of Jacobstuin’s decorativeness in late autumn - early winter. Paths and paths allow you to walk right through flower beds. This garden also has a vegetable garden and many cozy corners for gatherings around the house.
Rendel Barton Garden, Lippstadt, Germany
Rendel Barton's garden is decorated with many plaques with quotes. My favorite one says: “First the garden belonged to me, and now I belong to the garden.” Actually, that’s the whole story, which has been going on for more than thirty-five years. The first success was a self-made film pond with lush moisture-loving plants along the banks. Then Rendelle saw ancient roses... and a rose garden appeared. A tribute to inspiring garden travel was the “Memories of England” corner in the form of a regular garden with boxwood borders.
Rendelle Barton's favorite color is blue: here and there. There are many plants in containers in the garden, mainly annuals and heat-loving species, such as agapanthus.
Garden of Julia Tadeush, Minsk region, Belarus
The history of this small - only 6.5 acres - garden began more than half a century ago. An artist, landscape designer and a big fan of roses, Julia planned all the flower beds so that, while walking along the paths of the garden, you could admire the roses in the company of their best partners - clematis.
Spring is filled with bright colors. The lilac-pink June comes to replace it with its peonies, mock orange, weigela, geraniums, bluebells and Siberian irises. A little later, the roses burst into flames like colorful fireworks. There is also a shady corner in white and green tones with lilac, dogwood, hydrangea, ferns and hostas, and a small pond, the quiet murmur of water in which sets you in a romantic mood.
Broadview Gardens, Hadlow, UK
Broadview Gardens is a demonstration garden for Hadlow Agricultural College, affiliated to the University of Greenwich. The gardens are located in Kent, which is called the vegetable garden of England for its favorable climate and fertile soils. The main compositions are located along a paired floral mixborder stretching for more than 100 m, which is decorated with a green trimmed wall made of yew berries.
Broadview Gardens is famous for its collections of rare plants; two national collections of rarities located here are of particular interest: Japanese anemones and hellebores. The latter are one of the pioneers among early flowering plants: already in February, garden guests enjoy the delicate beauty of opening flowers, and there are dozens of species and varieties of them.
Ulbrich Family Garden, Solingen, Germany
The owner of the garden, Torsten Ulbrich, is a professional florist. He divided 80 acres of land into a dozen “garden rooms,” and each of them has its own character. Near the house there is a boxwood garden with topiary figures. Behind it is a Baroque garden, which is bordered by a large pond with a waterfall. On the other side of the pond, under the pine and spruce trees, there is a shady garden.
Hidden behind the trees is a cottage garden - a lawn with colorful ribbon flower beds. Turning back, you can go out to the white flower bed bordering the brick wall of the monastery garden. Through it you can enter the “black” garden with purple-leaved plants and decorative rusty screens. And then - a lace parterre made of dwarf barberries and boxwood. Behind it is a formal garden next to a brick gate with boxwood borders and lush flower beds with peonies, delphiniums, and daylilies. Flowerpots of different styles and materials, all kinds of supports for climbing plants, and various sculptures are placed everywhere.
Markovsky Garden, Leningrad region, Russia
Yuri Markovsky is the guru of St. Petersburg gardening. At the entrance to the garden, guests are greeted by a “color shock” - a bright and spectacular “bouquet” mixborder of phlox, delphiniums, daylilies, cornflowers and many other elegant perennials, and then visitors wander off, looking at the countless treasures of shady corners, rockeries, meadow flower gardens and cottage gardens in English style. Today the owner of the garden is passionate about the selection of phlox, but before them there were primroses, ferns, and Japanese irises.
There are a lot of bright annual plants and heat-loving conventional “summer plants” in the garden: there are cannas, agapanthus, pelargoniums, coleus, fuchsias. Plans for the near future include converting the alpine slide into a collection of miniature hostas.
Garden of Elena Solovyova, Leningrad region, Russia
The bright and lush garden on the Karelian Isthmus is already more than a quarter of a century old. Astilbes and phloxes, bells and clematis, buzulniki and hostas, monardas and aconites, loosestrife and black cohosh, barberries and unusual conifers, rare shady perennials - from arizema and crows to trilliums, as well as hydrangeas and lilacs help color the cool and often cloudy St. Petersburg summer.
An interesting collection of dwarf coniferous and deciduous trees and shrubs, so fashionable today, is collected in an “amphitheater” - on a semicircular slope - and decorated in the form of a rock garden with elements of a rutaria. Miniature trees and shrubs maintain the structure of the collection all year round, and from spring to autumn it is colored by miniature hostas, ornamental grasses and other precious rarities.
The hallmark of the garden is a homemade log bench near a small pond, which also serves as a retaining wall on difficult terrain.
Keukenhof, Lisse, Netherlands
The largest flower garden in the world, the royal flower park Keukenhof is located in Holland, in the small town of Lisse. It got its name, translated as “kitchen garden,” due to the fact that herbs were once grown here for Countess Jacoba Van Beyeren. The spring flower exhibition is open for two months - until mid-May, and all this time in the open-air exhibitions, crocuses and snowdrops, blueberries and muscari bloom, as well as daffodils, hazel grouse, hyacinths, tulips, of which “ woven" floral paintings, patterns and ornaments.
In Keukenhof you can see interesting themed gardens, park sculpture, and even admire the panorama of the park from the observation deck located on an old windmill from the middle of the last century.
Hidcote Manor Garden, Gloucestershire, UK
The creator of this magnificent garden - an icon of the English cottage style - is the American Lawrence Johnston, an outstanding gardener, designer, and plant collector. A special feature of the author's project is the presence of many closed garden rooms, limited by trimmed hedges made of yew and beech, as well as brick or stone walls.
Moving from one “green room” to another (and each of them has its own unique atmosphere), guests experience a change in vivid impressions and moods.
In addition, many interesting artistic techniques were used in the creation of Hidcote Manor: the formation of long whists, alleys and free groups, trimmed topiary figures, regular plantings and natural forest corners, rocky areas and water streams.
Garden of Irina Pyzhikova, Leningrad region, Russia
Over the 35 years of the history of her garden, Irina Pyzhikova has collected an excellent collection of coniferous trees and shrubs, and ornamental grasses. The 15-acre garden is divided into green rooms, each with its own role. The front part of the garden in front of the house is a balanced combination of lawn, conifers and bright decorative foliage trees and shrubs.
And behind the house there is a small flower garden with the remaining alpines; a “swamp” flower garden overlooking an area with a miniature pond-tub and a samovar bent over it under a red-leaved bird cherry tree; a minimalist garden of cereals with a square pond and a collection of buzulniks. On the other side of the central path there is a bonsai garden with miniature plants in pots and an orchard.
Topiary, Zedelgem, Belgium
The owner of this garden, Bernadette Christien-Standert, closely follows fashionable garden trends: she experiments with exotic plants, is fond of mini-bonsai and “mobile” gardening in containers.
The garden became famous throughout and beyond its “chessboard” with 99 squares of boxwood and yew. Tall beech, hornbeam and yew hedges are also trimmed here. They separate from the regular garden a secret landscaped garden with a large pond, on the banks of which flowers bloom from early spring to late autumn. An elegant Moorish wrought iron staircase leads to the roof of the house, where there is a rock garden. From there there are beautiful views of the formal garden with 'landscape' content. Framed by boxwood borders, roses, clematis, peonies, delphiniums, and dahlias bloom.
