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Kyiv in bloom: city’s botanical gardens

Kyiv is undoubtedly beautiful all year round, but the spring season makes Ukraine’s capital really awesome…

 

The winter season is over. The days get longer and warmer. Kyiv comes alive with blooming trees wherever you look. The subtle sweet fragrance of flowers fills the air, making it magic and romantic. 

Magnolia in Kiev botanical garden

There are so many nice places with flowers including snowdrops, daffodils and tulips, and bloom in Kyiv that you could spend days walking around the city. Starting out in the early spring with the first flowers, followed by magnolia, lilac and chestnut blossoms, Kyiv bursts out with a variety of colours such as red, pink, lilac, lavender, white, yellow, blue, and purple.

Chestnut tree in Kiev

A botanical garden in spring is a joy for every nature lover, and a real festival for the eyes and for the nose. There are two wonderful botanical gardens in Kyiv. Both of them are really beautiful and can offer a great collection of plants from various corners of the world. 

Magnolia in Kiev botanical garden

Hryshko National Botanical Garden (M.M.Gryshko National botanical Garden), founded in 1936, contains over 13,000 varieties of plants, flowers, shrubs and trees. As one of the biggest botanical gardens in Europe, it covers an area of 130 hectares where you can find the nature of Ukrainian Steppes and Carpathians, Crimea, Caucasus, Central Asia and other regions. There 28 kinds of lilac in the world, and 21 of them can be found here in the garden. It also has some amazing greenhouses and rosaries. The Trinity Monastery of St. Jonas is located on its grounds. A bit further away, you can find one the most beautiful landmarks of Kyiv, St. Michael Vydubytsky Monastery, which dates back to the 11th century. The history of Hryshko National Botanical Garden is very interesting as well. The idea of the creation first appeared in 1918, though the construction began only in 1935, and was ceased because of the Second World War. At that time the great part of the garden’s collection was lost. It took a lot of effort to make the botanical garden open again that happened on 29 March 1964. Nowadays, Hryshko National Botanical Garden is visited by more than 1 million people every year. 

Lilac in Kiev

Hryshko National Botanical Garden is located by the following address: Temeryazivska street 1. There a few options to get there: to take the metro to the station Druzhby narodiv and then walk for about 10 minutes, or to take the metro to the station Pecherska and then take a bus №62 or trolley bus №14 and go to the final stop called Botanical garden. 

The collection of Fomin Botanical Garden includes about 8,000 different plant species. The garden, founded in 1839, is one of the oldest botanical gardens in Ukraine. It is located in the historical center of Kyiv and occupies the territory of 22 hectares. The garden is divided into 2 zones — the park and scientific zone. The park welcomes guests at any time. However, it is particularly popular in the spring season of blooming magnolia, the collection of which includes about 40 species. The scientific zone offers only guided tours. The garden was named after Alexander Fomin who was the director of the garden in 1914 – 1935 and did his utmost to make it thriving. During the First World War he managed to save fragile tropical plants and build three new greenhouses. In 1941-1943 years, during the Nazi occupation of Kyiv plenty of precious species were lost, and some of them were sent to Germany. Nevertheless, in the spring of 1944 the botanical garden was reopened to the public. 

Magnolia in Kyiv botanical garden

Fomin Botanical Garden is located by the following address: Simon Petlyura Street 1, near the metro station "Universitet".

 

Welcome to the blooming season in Kyiv! 

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