Botanical Garden

The main aim of the University Botanical Garden is to provide a training platform for an educational process. However, apart from implementing an educational and research facility for students, the Botanical Garden disseminates and popularises knowledge of botany among the general public. This sphere of activity is very important.

The history of the Botanical Garden of St Petersburg University started in the 1840s when the renowned master gardener Peter Ludwig Buek planted the first trees in front of the Twelve Collegia building. The development of the Botanical Garden in its current place is connected with the name of a prominent botanist Andrey Beketov. He helped the University acquire the land where later the buildings were constructed (Botanical Garden classrooms, the Greenhouse and others). From that moment the Botanical Garden started building the collection of plants.

The Botanical Garden consists of three greenhouses and an outdoor area with a total area of 1,75 hectares.

Since summer 2018, complex research and development and other works on reconstruction of the Botanical Garden have been carried out. Today, apart from the research and development works materials, there is a project for the restoration of the seeds greenhouse which will soon be implemented. Also, there is a draft (a conception) of the garden territory that proposes future fields of development of the botanical collections and outdoors area exhibitions. Above all, the Botanical Garden is a plant research collection. All the activities of the Garden must take this key target into account. There are two basic types of growing plants — systematic and compositional. They have different planning and can be implemented in different parts of the Garden.

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Areas of work

Academic programmes

Academic programmes are aimed at learning about the: introduction of new plants; basics of landscape design; basic skills and knowledge of decorative gardening; and other topics.

Public events

They are aimed at: the popularisation of the Botanical Garden; knowledge of botany; and the basics of decorative gardening.

Realisation of students’ and research work

The Botanical Garden helps students and teachers implement their work on the basis of its collections.

Cooperation

The Botanical Garden cooperates with other botanical gardens in order to: share experiences in the field of the introduction of new plants and acclimatisation of plants; and answer questions of conservation of biodiversity given global warming.

Botanical Garden for children

The Botanical Garden arranges excursions, master-classes and lessons for children in the school of a young gardener.

Academic programmes in the field of botany

Biology
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Ecology and Nature Management
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Soil Science
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Botanical Garden exhibitions

There are collections of live plants cultivated both in greenhouses and in outdoors areas.

Greenhouses

In the greenhouses of the Botanical Garden of the University there are the following collections of live plants:

  • tropics and subtropics plants
  • dry regions plants (succulents)
  • aquatic and coastal plants
  • systematic collections of conifers and sporophytes

Outdoor area

In the outdoor area there is an arboretum. This is a collection of tree and shrubbery plantings, and a collection of decorative herbs. For a long time in the Garden there have been collections of plants endemic to the North-West region of Russia; a section with systematic planting that illustrated the flora lost in the end of the last century. It is necessary to restore the sections with systematic plants and local plants, as they are the most valuable in teaching students.

Fields of development of the future botanical collections and exhibitions in the outdoor area
  • a range of decorative plants that are successfully used in gardening and urban landscaping in the North-West region of Russia
  • section with flora of the North-West region (ecological exhibition)
  • flora of the Far East and North America that shows the area disjunction effect
  • flora exhibitions, including collections of separate generic complexes in compliance with scientific interests of the staff of the Department of Botany
  • ecology collections-exhibitions (rockery with tundra and mountains plants, a collection of aquatic and coastal plants and others)
  • collections that demonstrate the results of introduction of new plants including adventitious and synanthropic species
  • collections that demonstrate methods and results of the selection of food and technical plants
  • a collection of medicinal plants
  • memorial collections that record the work of scientists who worked at the beginning of the Garden and the Department of Botany, and who developed them up until today

To book an excursion

Telephone

+7 (931) 007-79-01

E-mail

excursions@spbu.ru

Please, note that excursion requests should be sent no later than five working days before the suggested date of the visit. If you send an excursion request via e-mail, you should wait until the Museum staff approve the date and time specified in the application.

Buy ticket

https://pay.spbu.ru/garden/

St Petersburg University Multimedia Guide

The application gives access to the information space of the University. It shows the modern life of the University and its history on the basis of documents. Using the application, you can: see places connected with the University; see how the University’s interiors looked in the previous centuries; and get a text or audio commentary. The guide was created with the support of the ‘Russkiy Mir’ foundation

Google Play

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