Alpine House and Bulb Garden
A short walk into the garden, up on the ridge are the Alpine House and Bulb Garden, where the Botanical Garden’s collection of bulbous and tuberous plants have their new home. These buildings were inaugurated in the spring of 2024 and formed the first part of the new glasshouse complex.
Under the ground and up on the mountain top
The Bulb Garden and the Alpine House showcase plants adapted to harsh conditions. These plants come from regions with a short growing seasonand dry summers. As climate change continues, it is uncertain whether these natural habitats will persist. Ex situ conservation – preserving plants outside their natural environments – is therefore becoming increasingly important.
Botanical gardens around the world work together to share knowledge and safeguard biodiversity for the future. Here, in the Bulb Garden and the Rock House, you can see some of the collections that are normally kept behind the scenes in our greenhouses.
Alpine plants have been cultivated in the Botanical Garden since its foundation in 1923. Since the 1960s, we have been involved in several collaborative projects focusing on the flora of south-west Asia, including collecting and research expeditions to mountain regions in countries such as Afghanistan, Iran and Turkey.
The Alpine House
Step into the Alpine House and experience a stark, rugged landscape. Here, we recreate high-altitude conditions with strong winds and intense light. With a little luck, the rock face will be lit up by flowering alpine plants adapted to life above the tree line.
In the Alpine House, we grow alpine plants from, among other places, Iran, Turkey, Morocco, Argentina and the western United States. Summers in these regions are dry, with large temperature differences between day and night. Winters are cold, often with a covering of snow.
The Bulb Garden
The Bulb Garden is particularly a spring feature. Here, you can see plant life awakening long before most of the other parts of the garden. During other seasons, these plants are more “reserved”, living underground as bulbs or tubers. Such plants are known as geophytes.
The Botanical Garden has a long tradition of cultivating bulbous and tuberous plants, and large parts of our scientific collection can be seen here.
Highlights
- In the Bulb Garden, you can see over 600 geophytes from the Botanical Garden’s scientific collection.
- Plants growing straight out of the rock? In the Alpine House, you can see alpine plants adapted to growing in the smallest crevices.
- Do not miss the cushion primroses (Dionysias) from our extensive collection. In the wild, they grow high up in mountainous regions and are now threatened by ongoing climate change.
