The Botanical Garden on Aptekarsky Island is where Petersburgers go in winter: when it is minus twenty outside, it is plus twenty-five in the Palm House, bananas are growing and orchids are in flower. The garden was founded in 1714 as Peter the Great's Apothecary Garden and is the oldest botanical garden in the country. Today it is an arboretum and a greenhouse complex about a kilometre long, one of the largest in Europe.
The entrance on Professora Popova Street. Photo: Wikimedia Commons
The Apothecary Garden
The island takes its name from the garden Peter established to grow medicinal herbs for pharmacies and hospitals. According to the garden, in the nineteenth century it became the Imperial Botanical Garden with expeditions across the empire; greenhouses were built from the 1820s, and most of the present complex dates from the late nineteenth century. The garden survived the siege of Leningrad: most plants were lost, but staff saved part of the collection, and some of the "siege plants" open the tour.
Greenhouses and routes
The greenhouses are visited only with a guide, by route. The main ones: tropical (palms, lianas, bananas, the Great Palm House with its 23-metre dome), subtropical (citrus, camellias, azaleas), aquatic (water lilies, the giant Victoria in summer) and cacti and succulents. Each route takes about an hour; two in a day is realistic. Timetables are on the website; at weekends there are queues at the ticket office.
The Great Palm House, its dome as high as a six-storey building. Photo: Wikimedia Commons
The tropical route: lianas, bananas, orchids. Photo: Wikimedia Commons
The most popular events are the cherry blossom in April–May and the night-time flowering of the "queen of the night" cactus in summer, when the garden opens at night and the queue for tickets stretches down the street.
The aquatic greenhouse with water lilies. Photo: Wikimedia Commons
The arboretum
The park around the greenhouses is an arboretum of century-old trees: oaks, larches, Manchurian walnut, Siberian pine. You walk it on your own with a ticket. Spring brings the primrose garden and the cherry blossom, summer the rose garden, autumn one of the best autumn walks on the Petrograd Side. There is a pond and a rock garden.
The arboretum in autumn. Photo: Wikimedia Commons
