Flora Cologne Botanic Garden

Garden Overview

The FLORA ensemble from 1864 cites the French baroque, Italian renaissance and English landscape gardens. Here you can find more than 10,000 plant species on 30 acres. The Arboretum, the Alpine, Cottage and Iris gardens attract one million visitors per year. In 4 greenhouses outstanding collections of cacti,  cycads, tree ferns and palms are cultivated.

The garden is a member of the "European Garden Heritage Network" (EGHN) and of the "Botanic Garden Conservation International“ (BGCI).

Our Camellias

Besides the camellias in the greenhouse, half are cultivated outdoors in the mild climate of the Rhine valley. The collection consists of 525 cultivars and 40 species and comprises many old Italian and Japanese cultivars, including Higos. Other focal points are modern reticulata-hybrids and yellow flowering camellias. In the Tropical yard the autumn-flowering cultivars create an exotic ambiance beside the giant waterlily and lotus flowers. 

A yearly exhibition with large displays on camellia facts attracts more than 70,000 visitors from January to March. Guided tours are offered. All plants are labelled and all data are documented in the garden's botanical database.

News

Another very mild winter 2014/15 was good to our camellias, as well as the sunny spring. Therefore the 14^th camellia exhibition from end of January to mid of April had again 80.000 visitors.

A mild autumn so far makes the C. sasanqua varieties and C. oleifera hybrids to flower extensively at the moment outside, giving a very colourful touch to the otherwise leafless garden. The camellia collection is on the way to be complemented by collecting more Higo varieties, a project realized together with another ICS member.

Higo variety ’Mikuni-no-homare’
A mutation of ‘Higo-kyô-nishiki’ (Yoshimura, 1961; ICS register).
A donation to the Flora by ICS member Gisela Decker (Foto by Hedi Grube, Köln)

The project “German camellia breedings” together with the DeKG is being continued as well. Germany’s first „tea plantation“ within the “camellia forest” had a hard time despite the good weather; rabbits found tea leaves very attractive, too.

In the follow up of the 2014 Flora Gardens 150^th and Botanical Gardens 100^th anniversary the city council decided on June 23^rd positively and with overwhelming majority, to build a new greenhouse complex as a replacement for the old one from the 1950s, where restoration is no more possible. Opening of the new greenhouses will be in 2019. These will comprise of three climates with entry area and tropical useful plants, a main tropical house displaying the diversity of plant life, and a desert house showing the richness of evolutionary adaptions.

The new greenhouse complex will be realized on its historical ground and will be connected to the subtropical and camellia greenhouse by an orangery / conservatory of another 480 sqm. This will hold camellias and potted plants, and exhibitions around the year as well as an extension of the running camellia shows.

The new greenhouse complex seen from the palm tree alley
(visualization by Königs Architekten, Köln.)

During the construction time from 2017 to 2019 the camellia exhibition will be continued.
The 15^th camellia exhibition will be opened on January 22^nd and last until April 10^th 2016.

Contact Details

Die Flora, der Botanische Garten,
Amsterdamer Str. 34, D-50735 Köln, Germany 
Tel: (+49)-(0)221-560890
Email: botanischer-garten@stadt-koeln.de
Web: www.botanischergarten-koeln.de