Botanical Garden St. Gallen

[1] The first botanical garden in St. Gallen was established in 1878 in the municipal park east of the newly built Museum of Nature.

[3] The ground-breaking ceremony occurred by turning the first sod on 16 June 1945 in the Stephanshorn area of Neudorf, where the municipal nursery had been for decades.

In the America section, an Indian summer can be experienced on a small scale in autumn with the colorfully discolored leaves of the American trees and shrubs planted there.

In the geographical section of Asia, 400 plant species grow from the steppe, forest and mountain areas with different Asian climates.

One of the most popular places to stay in the botanical garden is the pergola, which is densely covered with Asian climbing plants.

This area is particularly attractive at the heyday of the Vial's primrose (primula vialii), which has its natural location in the Chinese provinces of Yunnan and Sichuan and was planted here in hundreds.

For alpine plants, which require more neutral to acid soil pH conditions, an area with Verrucano rock was created.

The three educational departments with the topics of biology, genetics and systematics are used in practical demonstrations to complement the knowledge that is only theoretically available to most visitors: Plants of the rainforest, succulents and crops such as cinnamon, coffee or vanilla are shown in a 1998 newly built large tropical green house with two pools and a grandstand.

Its special architectural features are the supporting structure made of laminated wooden beams based on the Otto Hetzer principle and the roof lantern mounted on them, which ensures a better light incidence.

The long-standing director of the institution, Hanspeter Schumacher, published in 2013 a German language guide through the botanical garden entitled The Botanical Garden of St. Gallen: A Place of Rest, Education and Encounter (Der Botanische Garten St. Gallen: Ort der Erholung, Bildung und Begegnung).

The entrance area to the botanical garden at the sliding gate at the Stephanshornstrasse was designed with several large artistically crafted Rorschach sandstone shelves.

Starting point of this 8 kilometres (5.0 mi) long thematic trail is the model of the sun next to the tropical house.