Six highlights in the Botanic Garden: from a trip around the world to a real VIP

On eight hectares of land, you will not only travel to almost all corners of the earth with the help of flora - and sometimes fauna - but also get to see some very rare guests. 

The Botanical Garden, which opened in 1979, is a very special green space in the south of Düsseldorf. Directly adjacent to Heinrich Heine University, it is not only students, professors and the gardening team responsible for maintaining the grounds at Universitätsstraße 1 that can be found here all year round. More than 6,000 plant species also call this little spot in the Wersten district their home - even though some of them come from the remotest corners of the planet. Immerse yourself in the world of botany, without which we could not exist, but which is increasingly under threat, on the approximately one kilometer long circular trail.

Despite trends such as urban gardening and farming and the recent hype surrounding houseplants, fewer and fewer of us understand how nature, and flora in particular, really works. Fortunately, there are botanical gardens - and experts like Larissa Sieben - to enlighten us. She has been working as a garden manager on site for a decade and is now training future colleagues. The 44-year-old also gives regular tours of the grounds (open to the public and free of charge on Sundays at 3 pm, special tours for families with children on Saturdays from 11 am; an audio guide is also available). She revealed her highlights to us.  

A real celebrity, moved here from Down Under 

Perhaps the biggest celebrity the Botanic Garden has ever seen is almost hiding a little. Once you enter the 1000 square meter domed greenhouse, it takes a few steps past the flora of the Canary Islands before he - or she! - emerges: Allow me, a genuine Wollemie! "In 1994, a ranger discovered a row of these trees by chance in a ravine in Australia," explains garden manager Larissa Sieben, "and they had long been thought to be extinct!" A magnificent specimen is now growing in Düsseldorf, and the Wollemia seems to have taken such a liking to its neighborhood with floral representatives from New Zealand, Asia and other regions with warm summers and rainy winters that it literally blossomed in 2020. A sensation, as if Fortuna Düsseldorf had won the Champions League! And so the tree was featured in all newspapers, magazines and web portals, just like a VIP. There are even offspring, which the gardener responsible for the domed greenhouse is planning to plant in the botanical garden. Until a Wollemien forest grows in Wersten, enjoy the sight of aloe vera, fig, eucalyptus and viper's bugloss, among others, whose flower stalks reach up to two meters in height - and greet the equally gigantic tree fern, which inhabited this earth when dinosaurs were still running around.  

Oh, and when you leave the dome greenhouse, don't miss the plant exchange at the entrance. Perennials and houseplants are waiting for a new home for a donation. 

Around the world in 80 minutes 

Jules Verne might have reconsidered his book title if the botanical garden had already existed in 1873. After all, who wants to travel around the world in 80 days when you can do it in 80 minutes? That's how quickly you can walk from lavender fields in France to North America's swamp zone to the plant world of China. "It's worth visiting this section at any time of year, but especially in winter," says Larissa Sieben. This is because the Chinese winter flower exudes a fragrance that is just as intense and "incredibly fragrant" as the winter honeysuckle. After a few meters, you pass the border with Japan, where the foliage is particularly beautiful in autumn, before reaching the Caucasus - one of Larissa Sieben's favourite places. "I especially love spring here! In addition to grape hyacinths and snowdrops, several bushes of different types of peony bloom here!" Our favorite: the willow-leaved pear with its silvery shimmering, narrow foliage. The European oak-hornbeam forest, just a few hundred meters away, is best visited in midsummer, when the trees provide plenty of shade thanks to their dense canopy. "And there really is nothing better than evaporative cooling at 30 degrees," says expert Sieben. 

Kitchen garden - and a pharmacy in the open air 

Would you have thought that apples can also suffer from calcium deficiency? Or that plants such as woad can be used to give your jeans their typical blue hue? And then there's the amount of plants that are able to influence our bodies, from our blood to our mental health! You can find out all this information - and so much more - in the kitchen garden. It is a focal point of the site, as many researchers work here and investigate the effective growth of rice, maize and barley, for example. You will also discover various types of vegetables, energy and textile plants as well as herbs in enclosed beds. In the open-air pharmacy adjacent to the kitchen garden, around 100 pharmacologically relevant plants grow, from field horsetail to meadow yarrow, which - like all plants in the facility - thrive free from pesticides and similar products. The labels can even be scanned using QR codes on a smartphone. "We are also delighted to have five new fruit trees, namely pears, apples and a mirabelle," adds Larissa Sieben. All varieties are on a special list of the Nature and Biodiversity Conservation Union (Nabu), as they are old species that are no longer widespread. It goes without saying that the entire team at the Botanic Garden is eagerly awaiting the harvest! 

A star on four paws 

What would flora be without fauna? And so the eight-hectare site is home to a variety of animal inhabitants that, with a little luck, you can observe at any time of the year and day. Discovering the blue-orange feathered kingfishers, at least two of which live in the botanical garden, is certainly a special experience. "They might be a pair, but we don't know for sure," says Larissa Sieben. One thing is certain: At the right place at the right time, namely the lake not far from the domed greenhouse, the birds can be caught snatching a fish. A rare, but not impossible sight! The resident nutria, herons, squirrels, toads and rabbits prove to be somewhat less shy. But nothing and no one, whether on two or four feet or paws, can compete with Lucy! The black cat is the true star of the botanical garden. The stray animal, long known as the "Campus Cat", is already followed by several hundred people on his own Instagram account, profile name "bogacathhu".  

On the road in South Africa 

Pure white flowering heathers, so large that they would never fit into the flower boxes otherwise intended for them, stonecrops and yet another plant known far beyond Düsseldorf: "Welcome to the South Africa House" is the motto of the 330 square meters that give you a first impression of the local steppe vegetation. The special feature: Specimens that botanists brought back from the country in the southern hemisphere half a century ago grow here. Now strictly forbidden, the export of plants was not unusual in the mid-20th century - which is why, for example, the bread palm fern now grows in Düsseldorf. "Older than the dinosaurs", its flower with its cones and the seeds it contains, which resemble miniature pieces of red plastic, causes quite a stir. This spectacle only happens extremely rarely, around every seven years. Oh, and in case you're wondering where the plants come from nowadays if they are no longer allowed to leave their homeland: Botanical gardens and universities simply swap seeds back and forth, free of charge and without obligation, even with their own international shipping service. "It is very important to us that we have flowers and trees as they would be found in the wild," explains garden manager Sieben. These can no longer be found in a garden center or nursery. "As soon as a gardener has had a turn, he changes the natural appearance, for example by selecting them. We avoid that." 

Sustainability 

Conflicts such as the war in Ukraine open the eyes of many of us - and, in addition to suffering and horror, show us the extent to which the world is economically interdependent. The "Ceplas" research group, which includes experts from Heinrich Heine University, is investigating how to supply the growing population. At the Botanical Garden, they are working on and with energy and food crops of the future, such as barley. "We humans have become a little lazy when it comes to our idea of where our food comes from," says garden manager Sieben. "No one can be blamed for that, after all, everything is always available in the supermarket." In the botanical garden, however, you have the opportunity to experience at first hand and with all your senses how we may be eating in a few decades' time - and how our thinking may have changed by then. "For example, simply leaving leaves lying around in the fall helps to increase the number of important insects." Millions of creatures can be found under the old leaves, making new life possible again. This is how sustainability works. "Nature teaches us to be patient. Even if the bed doesn't look so nice for a while - something new will grow again." 

Insider tip 

When you finish your tour of the botanical garden, don't miss the small area diagonally opposite the domed greenhouse. "Am Wirtschaftsgebäude", i.e. in a small area in front of the staff area, there is a path made of peach stone shells that leads you to a variety of beautifully flowering cyclamen in spring. 

Cover picture: Düsseldorf Tourismus