Akademischer Forstgarten Gießen

Giessen, Germany, Germany

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Akademischer Forstgarten Gießen is a historic arboretum and botanical garden located in the Schiffenberger Wald on Schiffenberger Weg in Gießen, Hesse, Germany, founded in 1825 by forester Karl von Gall as an independent institute for forestry teaching and serving as the teaching and experimental garden for the world's oldest university forestry institute.

The garden initially covered 0.5 hectares and by 1830 contained nearly 400 different forest plant varieties, including numerous foreign tree species from other countries and climate zones, eventually expanding to 6.7 hectares by 1883. It functioned as a significant internationally known arboretum primarily for study purposes, serving both forebotanical and forestry scientific studies as well as practical forestry teaching through testing various seed and planting methods, tree species mixtures, and species-specific site requirements.

The garden trained virtually all Hessian-Darmstadt chief foresters at one time and was designated as a cultural monument in 1976 due to its university and scientific historical significance. After the Forest Institute was relocated to the University of Göttingen in 1938 and the Gießen forestry science teaching ended, the garden fell into disuse until it reopened to the public in 1985 under the care of HessenForst and management by Forstamt Wettenberg.