The Geneva Botanical Garden

The garden was founded in 1817 in a park in the middle of the city and moved out to its present ground beside the lake at the start of the twentieth century, where it now covers a long slope of some twenty eight hectares. It is a working scientific institution with one of the larger herbaria in Europe attached to it, but the grounds themselves are a public park, open free of charge every day of the year. There is a rock garden banked up with alpine species, a mature arboretum, glasshouses of tropical and desert plants, beds of medicinal and useful species arranged by what they are used for, and a small collection of animals and birds kept here for over a century.

History

Augustin Pyramus de Candolle founded the garden in 1817 in part of the Bastions park, and in 1904 it moved to its present site on the rue de Lausanne, where the architect Henri Juvet had built a conservatory for it in 1902-1904 and added a winter garden in 1910-1911. The gardens now cover 28 hectares, and the herbarium, with more than six million specimens of plants, fungi and related organisms, is among the largest in the world (Wikipedia, Conservatoire et Jardin botaniques de la Ville de Genève).

The main sights

• The rock garden - alpine species banked into terraces and artificial screes.
• The glasshouses - tropical and desert collections under glass, free to enter.
• The arboretum - mature trees on the slope running down towards the lake.
• The beds of useful plants - medicinal, dye and food species set out by use.

When to go

April to June is the best stretch, with the rock garden and the flowering trees at their peak; autumn colour in the arboretum is the second choice. The glasshouses make a winter visit worthwhile in poor weather. It opens daily and is busiest at weekends in fine weather, when the lawns fill with families.

What to expect

This is a botanical collection rather than a designed pleasure garden, so the planting is instructive rather than showy and labels are everywhere. Part of the grounds sits close to a busy road and the traffic noise carries across the lawns. The animal enclosures strike some visitors as dated. In midsummer the open slopes give little shade.

Nearby

The lakeside path back into the centre of Geneva, and the parks along the right bank.

Key facts