Hohenheim Gardens

Today, the Hohenheim Gardens are home to around 3000 taxa of woody plants as well as numerous monuments and works of art from four centuries.

The Hohenheim Gardens are located in the south of Stuttgart in the district of Plieningen on the edge of the Filder plain in the central Neckar region between 340 and 380 metres above sea level.

It is nature animated with spirit and exalted by art, [...]" After the duke's death in 1793, some buildings, e.g. the ruined aqueduct or the guardhouse, were moved to Ludwigsburg Palace Park, others fell into disrepair.

Today, the “Spielhaus” houses the Museum of the History of Hohenheim, where a scale model of the garden at that time with all its architecture is on display and murals by Viktor Heideloff can be seen.

Following the example of Versailles, Duke Carl Eugen had a late Baroque representative garden laid out, whose path system still exists today.

[3] In 1829, a botanical garden with open spaces and groups of trees was created in the Palace Park for agricultural and forestry training.

Here the development of the vegetation of Central Europe from the last ice age about 15,000 to 11,000 years ago until today is displayed and presented on a circular walk.

Starting from there, the re-immigration of woody plants to the warmer hilly landscapes and the low mountain ranges of southern Germany is shown on the slopes of the Schlossberg.

[8] In 1789, the first heated greenhouse in Hohenheim, the so-called Iron House, was built as part of the English Garden, where Duke Carl Eugen kept a pineapple collection with over 1000 different plants.

[9] In 1896, newer greenhouses were built under Oskar von Kirchner, and the cold and warm house collection has continued ever since.

Duke Carl Eugen and especially Franziska von Hohenheim began collecting woody plants when the garden was established in 1776.

This monument, designed by the Plieningen sculptor Markus Wolf in the form of an obelisk, stands at the crossroads between Das Wirtshaus zur Stadt Rom [the Roman Inn] and the ‘Spielhaus’ in the Exotic Garden.

[14] To mark the 220th birthday of Catherine Pavlovna of Russia, Queen of Württemberg, a monument, also designed by Markus Wolf, was erected above the vineyard on 28 May 2008.