Krakow Botanical Garden

Founded in 1783 by the Jagiellonian University, this is the oldest botanical garden in Poland and still an academic one, laid out east of the old town on a plot of about ten hectares. The collection is arranged by system and habitat rather than for display, with beds of medicinal and useful plants, alpine sections and a pond, all under trees old enough to have been planted at the start. Several glasshouses hold the tropical and subtropical collections, including a large water lily and a palm section. It is a working teaching garden, quiet in a way that the streets a few hundred metres away are not.

History

Botany was taught to medical students at the Jagiellonian University from the end of the sixteenth century, but the school had no garden until 1783, when one was founded on land the Jesuits had bought from the Czartoryski family in 1752. It first covered about 2.4 hectares, laid out as a French baroque park; the observatory went up in 1788-1792, its weather station has a continuous record from 1825, and the "Jubilee" palm house opened in 1966 (Wikipedia, Botanic Garden of the Jagiellonian University).

Highlights

• The old trees - specimens dating back to the garden's foundation, including a well known ancient oak.
• The glasshouses - palm, orchid and water lily collections under nineteenth and twentieth century glass.
• The systematic beds - plants grouped by family and by use, labelled in the academic style.
• The alpine section - rock beds of mountain species, at their best in late spring.

When to go

The garden runs on a growing season and is normally closed through the winter, opening around April and shutting in October, so it cannot be treated as a year round option. May and June are the fullest months. Late afternoons are quiet. Glasshouse opening hours are shorter than the garden's, so go through them first if they matter to you.

Before you go

It is small and academic rather than ornamental, and visitors expecting formal display gardens tend to be underwhelmed. The greenhouses are sometimes ticketed separately or open only at limited hours. Lawns are not for sitting on and there is nowhere to picnic. On a hot day the shade is welcome but an hour is enough, and the labelling is largely in Polish and Latin.

Nearby

The old town is a fifteen minute walk west, and the university buildings and museums lie between the two.

Key facts