Old Botanical Garden, Kiel

The Old Botanical Garden in Kiel (2.5 hectares), also known as the Old Botanical Garden on the Fjord (Alter Botanischer Garten an der Förde), is a former botanical garden and arboretum located at Düsternbrooker Weg 19, Kiel, Schleswig-Holstein, Germany. It is open daily without charge. Kiel has had various botanical gardens since 1668, when professor Johann Daniel Major (1634–1693) established his horticus medicus within the garden of Kiel Castle. It is unclear whether this garden survived the Danish occupation of 1675–1676. Subsequent gardens were established on the site of the former Franciscan monastery on the Falckstraße (from 1727) and the garden at the Prüne (from 1803). No trace of these early gardens remains. The Old Botanical Garden began as the private park of tobacco manufacturer Abraham Christian Brauer, who in 1825 created a garden with curved walkways, differentiated woody plantings, a swan pond, and excellent views of Kiel's fjord landscape. Upon his death in 1868 the site was acquired by the University of Kiel, and from 1878 to 1884 was refashioned by botanist Adolf Engler as a botanical garden, introducing geographic plantings of exotic species while preserving the landscape aesthetics.