2014125th Anniversary of the Botanical Garden - First Day Cover

The oldest Croatithean botanical garden celebrates this year the 125th anniversary of its continuous existence and activity. Situated in the very heart of the town, the Botanical Garden of the Faculty of Science is the third most popular city sight in Zagreb, protected by law as the monument of culture and park architecture. Founded in the period when it was modern to grow exotic plants from distant parts of the world, it was partly built in English landscape style and partly as French floral parterre with not too large an area of exhibition greenhouses aimed for plants from tropic climates. Two small lakes with a small bridge, floral-parterre and the expo-pavilion are visitors' favourite attractions of the Botanical Garden.

On the total area of just 4.5 ha of the Botanical Garden today about 5000 different kinds of plants are grown, arranged in a number of thematic collections. Most interesting to experts are domestic plants that every day attract more and more attention. The focus is on endangered and statutorily protected sorts of Croatian flora, collected in their natural habitats and grown in areas especially dedicated for their glow – rockeries. In the west part of the Garden since 1891 there has stood an attractive expo-pavilion, in which during season various botanical and educational workshops, lectures and expositions take place. A regular May manifestation - the Week of Croatian Botanic Gardens and Arboretum attracts every year more children and grown-ups to the Garden.

The Botanical Garden of the Faculty of Science is one of the two University’s botanical gardens in Zagreb and Croatia’s representative in the European Botanic Garden Consortium (EBGC). Apart from its regular activities in near future the Botanical Garden expects the complete renewal of its historic greenhouses and the realisation of the comprehensive project H.O.R.T.U.S. from European funds. The Botanical Garden is open to visitors from 1 April to 1 November.