University gardens of the University Museum Bergen

Bergen, Norway, Norway

---

The University Gardens of the University Museum Bergen are Bergen's three botanical gardens, consisting of the Museum Garden in the city center and the Arboretum and Botanical Garden located 23 km south of Bergen at Milde. The Museum Garden, situated at Muséplassen 3, is the tranquil extension to the University Museum's iconic Natural History building in Bergen's city center and serves as a green, lovely garden displaying many kinds of flowers, perennials, shrubs, and trees. Although not very big, the garden is a botanical gem containing about 3,000 different kinds of plants from around the world, including a kitchen garden with food plants and spices, multiple flower beds, two rock gardens with beautiful flowers, a systematic arboretum with about a hundred trees, a water garden with three ponds, a tropical greenhouse, and a small Victoria waterlily house. The large and varied plant selection results from 120 years of trials with species potentially suitable for western Norway's climate, and since the 1880s, the garden has developed as a living extension to the natural history collections inside the museum. The garden is state protected, originally laid out with organically formed flower beds, lawns, and smoothly curving walking paths in the late 19th century, later changed to a more formal layout though the "Gamlehagen" (Old garden) part still maintains its original form.