The Botanical Garden in the heart of the city

Located in the heart of the city, the Botanical Garden has been opening its doors to visitors with the arrival of spring for 120 years now. Apart from Zagreb’s citizens, it is regularly visited by numerous tourists as it is one of Zagreb’s interesting landmarks.

With the arrival of spring, the Botanical Garden has once again opened its door to visitors. Located in the heart of the so-called Lenuci’s Horseshoe, it is part of a succession of parks that form the monumental frame of downtown Zagreb. The garden designed in the so-called landscape style, with free growing clusters of trees, winding paths and a symmetrical flower garden was first opened to visitors back in 1899. Since it belongs to the Zagreb University, the Botanical Garden of the Faculty of Science has always had an educational as well as a cultural and historic value, and over the last several decades it has been valorised in tourism. Due to its cultural and historic value, it was protected by law in 1971 and listed as a monument of garden architecture.

The Botanical Garden features many rare plants, and it consists of an arboretum, a flower garden, fourteen greenhouses, three stone houses and two artificial lakes, which have often been motifs for numerous painters. The famous painter Slava Raškaj painted some of the works from her “Water Lilies” series based on those lakes. Those works are nowadays considered to be among the best Croatian landscapes created at the turn of the 19th and the 20th centuries. Among the buildings in the garden is the management building in Viennese secession style, the building of the Botanical Institute, and the exhibition pavilion dating from 1891.

The garden spreads across 4.7 hectares and its largest part is the arboretum, designed in the style of English parks. The plants cultivated at the garden are all part of its collection and they are divided into several parts, among which are numerous indigenous species. Apart from Zagreb’s citizens, it is often visited by numerous tourists, especially those from Japan, who never miss the opportunity to see the Botanical Garden on their visit to Zagreb.

Entrance to the Botanical Garden is free of charge.