Palace of nature turns 75

Very soon one of the most beautiful botanical gardens of Ukraine, Hryshko National Botanical Garden, will celebrate its 75th anniversary. Botanists argue about whether this is too much or too little. The experts note that the London garden is 300 years old, so ours still has many years ahead of it. Meanwhile, it managed to become one of the best botanical gardens in the world, which is no accident: its area is 120 hectares, there are 13,000 sorts of plants. Every year Kyiv citizens and visitors come to see the blossoming of magnolias and over 40 sorts of lilacs. The greenhouse, filled with blooming azaleas, is popular in the winter. The employees of the botanic garden prepared several surprises for the visitors while preparing the anniversary celebrations.

“Soon we will open two new plots. One of them is a topiary art plot that is located between a mountain slope and a rosary. Its working title is ‘labyrinth,’ as it is built in this fashion. Its aim is to show plant clippings and their application to the hedges. The labyrinth is quite large — it covers half a hectare. It comprises different plants: hornbeam, ligustrum, juniper and arborvitae that are spiral and ball-shaped. When these clipped plants grow bigger, one may even get lost in the labyrinth. There are benches for the visitors between the clipped plants. In the middle of the labyrinth there is a flowerbed in the shape of a flower with petals. Among the clipped plants are mostly juniper and different hardwoods,” says Mykola Haponenko, deputy director of the Hryshko National Botanical Garden. “We also plan to open a new plot called ‘Gravel Garden.’ It is a bit smaller than the labyrinth but it has its own advantages. It will represent one of the directions of landscaping art, which combines plants and rocks. It will be a gravel pad of various colors, combined with lawns, bedded with the trees and shrubs. There will be also a new ‘Seasons’ plot in the center of the garden, where plants will represent winter, spring, summer and autumn. It is not complete yet but the main work is done. As you can see there are two small ponds, where a spring rhododendron and flower-ornamental plant collection will be located in due time. In general it will be a large plot, and will be interesting to see all year round.”

The botanical garden started receiving anniversary gifts few weeks ahead of time. Thus, the volunteers recently planted 40 ornamental pines on the Seasons plot with the support of the Kyivstar company. They were brought from Germany. According to an employee, these ornamental dwarf pines are rare and grow only in the highlands. But when properly taken care of, they can strike root in the Kyiv botanical garden as well. They were planted in the autumn part of the exposition. Before bedding out the trees to the open ground the experts analyzed the best time and area for planting the pines, so that they would fall under sun rays from a proper angle. They also elaborated the tree care plan so that they strike root successfully.

“As these are the ornamental sorts, they require special attention,” comments Volodymyr Kvasha, the scientific officer of the botanical garden. Savages, as we call the wood pines, grow by themselves. And these need to be trimmed, provided with watering, fertilizing and light — everything has to be thought through and arranged so that it would be aesthetically pleasing.

Several dozens of people of different ages came to create the ‘Autumn’ composition, and the children appeared to be the most enthusiastic about the idea. They were eager to take the spade and tried to dig a hole for the dwarf tree. With the help of the adults they managed to do it. And in about an hour a new alley of small pines appeared in the botanic garden.

“Such support of caring people, including the sponsors and donors, is very important. We have been preparing for our anniversary for some six years. There is a Verkhovna Rada decree on a state level celebration, which means that such events foresee additional financing for development, but we have not received any funds at all. All our work on creating new plots, repairing the premises, is done at our own cost. We make money on admission tickets, small donations from sponsors, and we are grateful to them,” Haponenko added.

In general, already half a million hryvnias have been spent on arranging this plot, another half a million will be needed to complete the Autumn composition. The employees of the garden say that in order to maintain such a palace of nature in beauty and order, except funds, a hardworking and enthusiastic staff is needed. Seeing how the garden has done in recent years, that is the kind of staff they have.

“We are constantly growing collections and expositions. We will open Seasons for the guests of the International Conference devoted to our 75th anniversary. We will work on perpetuating the plot where Prince Vsevolod’s red court was previously located. There will be a sign that will remind people that in the 11th century this is where the prince’s residence was located. This was confirmed by archaeologists. There will be no major construction here but we will install a commemorative sign,” Kvasha said. “In spring and in summer we enlarged the lilac and rosary collection. With the help of the Embassy of Japan, 30 ornamental cherry trees — sakuras — were planted. The embassy of China promises to help with enlarging the collection of arborescent peonies. The garden is constantly developing, and it is dynamic.”

The employees are proud of the trees that are older than the garden itself. According to Kvasha, this is the case of the Taras Shevchenko mulberry tree, under which the poet liked to sit, and the Ivan Kozlovsky oak. The latter is about 300 years old; when Kozlovsky was in the garden, he gave a concert under that oak. There are several old linden and chestnut trees on the territory, which were growing there before the botanical garden’s establishment. Now these plants are natural landmarks and memorial trees.

The experts do not forget about the renewal of the plant collections. Thus, the garden employees wanted to open the Garden of Roses. But they did not manage to incarnate all their ideas because of lack of funds. This year the Hryshko National Botanical Garden did not receive a penny from the budget’s planned 23 millions for development. They prepared all the surprises for the anniversary at the garden’s and their benefactors’ expense. Despite economic hardships, the garden is developing, and never complains of lack of visitors. Those visitors are the best testament to the garden’s stature. The future plans of the garden management are to create expositions of landscaping art from different countries, such as Japan, China, and France. We wish them all the best.