Solingen Botanical Garden

Pond system

The Solingen Botanical Garden, which was inaugurated in 1963, is a garden and park that is accessible free of charge and has been a listed building since 2010, with numerous native and sometimes exotic plants in Solingen . The garden consists of several themed gardens.

Location and description

The botanical garden is located in the Gräfrath district of Solingen near the Vogelsang residential area in the immediate vicinity of the municipal clinic and the Vogelsang grammar school . The garden covers 61,519 square meters and has five entrances that are accessible by public transport and equipped with parking spaces. In the south the garden is bounded by the embankment of the corkscrew route .

The garden is built on a south-western slope with a maximum height difference of 35 meters with loess loam soil. Its base resembles that of a right-angled triangle , the right angle of which is at the main entrance to the Botanical Garden on Vogelsang Street. Hence the address of the garden, Vogelsang 2a. The portal at the main entrance leads to the central square of the botanical garden, which connects all areas. The outdoor area with the Alpinum begins on the right-hand side, straight ahead are the show houses with the tropical house and the city nursery, to the left of the portal is the building of the biological station, and there you get to the extension area of the garden, the old cemetery.

In the middle of the park in front of the show houses there is a cottage garden , a Mediterranean garden, and a rose and perennial garden , behind which, in the direction of the former railway embankment, there is an orchard , a wild bee educational trail and a fern wall. The garden slopes slowly towards the pond, next to a large heather garden there are some lawns or open spaces, as well as various trees. The pond is surrounded by some paths that lead into a central square in front of the entrance on Frankfurter Damm. A stream, which feeds the pond with water, flows from the Alpinum, which is bordered by a coniferous quarter, over a primrose garden past the plateau where there is a reading room . There is also a public bookcase in front of the reading room . The stream continues past a bird house through an iris garden before finally reaching the pond.

history

prehistory

School garden Bismarckstrasse

As early as 1906, the first botanical garden developed out of a school garden . In 1891, the then director of the Schwertstrasse grammar school, in connection with the construction of the new school building , suggested the creation of such a school garden on the school grounds. The idea was implemented in 1902. The school garden was at the point where the building was later expanded. In 1905, a teacher at the school asked the city of Solingen to create a botanical garden with a total area of over 1,000 square meters on the urban site between Bismarckstrasse and Brühler Strasse. This proposal came in handy for the city as the site could not be used as building land . On September 20, 1905, the city council passed the resolution to create a garden at the desired location for an estimated cost of 1,000 marks . The Solingen schools should bear the costs. The garden was planted successively from 1906 and visited by some school classes before it was opened to the public in 1908. For cost reasons, this botanical garden was closed again on August 6, 1914.

During the First World War , potatoes were planted in the garden to provide the population with food. The site then became the property of Hugo Linder Deltawerk von der Gasstraße, but the city initially secured the use of the site until 1920, since a new botanical garden at another location did not seem realistic due to a lack of workers .

Botanical Garden Hippergrund / Kannenhof

In 1919, when looking for an alternative site for a botanical garden, the municipal building supervisor Schmidthäusler struck gold. A decision was made on a plot of land in Hippergrund in the east of the city. The garden, which was laid out there until 1920, was largely designed by the Solingen teacher Peter Spelter. The work on the garden dragged on until July 3, 1920, the facility was opened on July 31, 1920. In the following period, the garden was constantly expanded under the city's horticultural inspector Max Hülse. On April 3, 1924, the Solinger Tageblatt wrote about the complex that it was one of the largest botanical gardens in Prussia with an area of 7½ acres .

After a few years it turned out that the area in the valley floor on which the garden was laid out was too wet for the plants that had settled there. On October 23, 1928, the City Garden Commission therefore advised the city garden commission on the necessary expansion and redesign of the garden. In the period that followed, the garden was expanded to the north in the direction of Wupperstrasse. Parts of the facility were destroyed by the air raids on Solingen city center during World War II, including the keeper's house, which was bombed on November 5, 1944.

Destroyed by the World War II bombs and neglected in the first few years after the war, the former botanical garden at Hippergrund was no longer worth seeing in 1950. The city undertook to restore the destroyed green spaces in the city area, and a park was to be created again from the area at Hippergrund in connection with the nearby Coppelstift children's home and the Kannenhof settlement . The work dragged on until the mid-1950s. Today the facility bears the name Gustav-Coppel -Park and is operated with civic engagement.

Cemetery and city nursery at Vogelsang

According to a newspaper report, the city of Wald acquired the largely undeveloped land on Vogelsang between the municipal hospitals , the embankment of the Solingen – Wald railway line , Eigener Feld and Frankenstrasse in 1924 from the heirs of Hammesfahr von der Foche in exchange for land of the same value. The city planned the construction of a new, municipal cemetery on the approximately 25 acre property, which could also have been expanded. The plans for the cemetery were drawn up in 1926 by the Düsseldorf garden architect Josef Buermann . A gardener's house at the main entrance on Vogelsang was initially planned for the buildings, later a Gothic chapel was to follow. A nursery was also planned.

Shortly before the city union between the five cities of the upper district of Solingen , the Protestant parish of Wald signed a contract with the city of Wald on July 1, 1929, according to which the cemetery that was being built at Vogelsang would be denominationally divided and the first construction phase opened in 1929. The city union was completed on August 1, 1929, but the city of Solingen, as the legal successor to the city of Wald, questioned the contractual claims of the Protestant parish, as they wanted to turn the site into a green area for the hospital and open a central cemetery far away. An out-of-court dispute between the two parties ended on May 2, 1934 with the opening of the cemetery, but the construction of a chapel was waived. The cemetery had to be closed in July 1941 due to a lack of capacity.

The city of Wald had already operated a city gardening center on Demmeltrath , which the city of Solingen took over in 1929. There was also the site of a tree nursery on Vogelsang. The tree nursery was cleared in 1945 and the area was used to grow vegetables for the hospital. Due to the increasing tasks for the city gardening department in the course of the reconstruction of the green spaces in the city area, their capacities at Demmeltrath were no longer sufficient. The neighboring garbage dump prevented further spatial expansion at the old location, so that on February 1, 1949, the municipal building committee voted for the establishment of a new municipal nursery on the old tree nursery on Vogelsang. The new nursery was built at the beginning of the 1950s on the site between the old cemetery on the corner of Sachsenstrasse in the north and the railway embankment in the south. Between 1950 and 1952 a total of eight greenhouses, a gardener's house, a boiler house and outdoor beds were built in this context.

Vogelsang Botanical Garden

History of origin

As early as mid-1947, the city committees were working on the creation of a new botanical garden at the Vogelsang site. What spoke against the old location at Hippergrund or at Kannenhof was that it was too small and offered less favorable climatic conditions. For the location at Vogelsang, among other things, its location in the middle of the formerly independent cities of Wald, Gräfrath and Solingen as a symbol of the new city of Solingen. The plans became topical again when the new city nursery was to be built on the former tree nursery site. The decision to create the garden was taken on February 1, 1949. The leading figure in the course of the planning for the garden was the municipal gardening director Heinrich Walbert. At the beginning of the 1950s, however, 37 private allotment gardens on the grounds at Vogelsang turned out to be an obstacle to the creation of a botanical garden, as some owners were vehemently reluctant to give up their land leased from the city . Ultimately, however, the city of Solingen was able to assert itself, as it has been proven that it needed the land for the common good .

The greenhouses of the city nursery, which also functioned as showhouses and were regularly visited by school classes in the early 1950s, formed the basis for the new botanical garden. By May 1953, the show houses already had a considerable number of tropical plants. Soon the houses opened their doors to the public three times a week. The final design of the botanical garden was decided in the second half of the 1950s. In 1957, the municipal garden and cemetery office presented a plan of the complex on the triangular property, which is around 15 acres in size. Among other things, a weather station , an Alpinum , sections with Asian and American woods, a heathland, an oak and a beech forest , a terrarium , a rhododendron grove and a pond, as well as sections for medicinal plants , wild perennials and culinary herbs were planned . The construction work lasted several years, in 1961 the pond with its island was created. The public could already visit the site during the construction work.

Opening and years of operation

Numerous plants were moved from other green spaces into the garden at Vogelsang if they stood in the way at their old location or had to give way for other reasons. Shortly before the opening, the Solingen fire brigade filled the pond with water using a hydrant . On Saturday, September 7, 1963, the garden was officially opened by the then mayor Otto Voos . The newly created garden attracted national attention and was the subject of reports in gardening magazines that praised it as being successful. The facility quickly developed into one of the most popular parks in Solingen.

The eight meter high tropical house has a floor space of 143 square meters and was opened in 1965. There was already 826 square meters of showroom space. In 1966 there were the first Sunday concerts. In the 1970s, the Botanical Garden had to be repaired numerous times, including two greenhouse roofs that were rotten. Driving on the site was always a challenge for truck drivers through the archway at the main entrance. Therefore, the archway was removed at that time. The artificial water cycle between the stream and the pond also temporarily stopped working due to leaks. Only after building a well and installing a circulation system with a pump were the problems resolved. After the construction of the Vogelsang school center in the immediate vicinity of the botanical garden, it became increasingly popular, also for teaching purposes.

The playground was created in 1985/86. On June 21, 1989, the Association for the Promotion of Rose Culture of the Bergisches Land Solingen, founded in 1877 eV , planted a viewing rose garden with roses according to the General German Rose Novelty Examination in the presence of the then Mayor Gerd Kaimer , who himself planted the climbing rose with the name Schöne von Solingen in the cottage garden planted. In 1991 the pond was redesigned, the different heights removed and the banks straightened. In the winter of 1994/95 the tropical house was redesigned. The gardener's house at the main entrance to the botanical garden was used as a residential building until the 1990s. The Biological Station Mittlere Wupper has been located there since 1997 . This looks after nature reserves and natural monuments , for example .

In 2001, the open space of the garden was enlarged by adding the old cemetery with over 6 hectares to the botanical garden. The first sculptures were exhibited in the park from April 12, 2002 under the motto Art in the Park - Encounters with Nature . Further sculptures as well as large-scale sculptures, including the metal animals that were created in the youth welfare workshop, followed.

Todays situation

With the steady deterioration in the budget situation of the city of Solingen as the sponsor of the Botanical Garden, savings in the park area through to its closure have been under discussion since 1998. In response to this, the Solingen Botanical Garden Foundation was founded on October 15, 1998 with initially 14 people . V. as a support association for the preservation of the garden. This mobilized the Solingen population with numerous events in the Botanical Garden to fight against the threat of closure. Since it was founded, he has also tried to liven up the garden with various events. In the following years there was repeated talk of afforestation or the reduction of the standard of care on the part of the city in order to save operating costs of tens of thousands of euros. The development association then committed itself to cover part of the operating costs through sponsorship or to keep it as low as possible through its own work. In the meantime, the members of the foundation take care of a significant part of the maintenance costs themselves. Since 2004 there has been a sponsor board in the entrance area of the botanical garden, honoring the numerous donors and supporters from the citizenship and local companies as sponsors. As patron of the Foundation supported Walter Scheel , Federal President a. D., the friends' association for around 13 years until his death in 2016 with appeals for donations or greetings at official events. Since then, numerous other prominent Solingen residents have acted as sponsors, for example Veronica Ferres , Richard David Precht and Michael Lesch . The Solingen Mister Germany 2016 Florian Malzahn was the sponsor of the Botanical Garden in 2016 and collected donations for the necessary renovation measures.

In June 2010 the tropical house and the entire botanical garden were placed under monument protection. In 2011 the festival area was opened and the old tradition of Sunday concerts from 1966, which had meanwhile fallen asleep, was resumed. In September 2016, the Solingen Botanical Garden was included in the “Street of Garden Art” initiative . In February 2017, the old depot including the toilet facility was demolished in favor of a new hospice building. The Solingen Hospice, run by Palliative Hospiz Solingen eV, opened on May 5, 2018. The new handicapped accessible toilet facility including changing table was built next to the main entrance and has been available free of charge since July 2018. The Botanical Garden has had a fifth entrance since September 2018. From now on the Botanical Garden can also be entered from Gothenstrasse. There has been an e-bike filling station next to the main entrance since May 2019. Cyclists can now charge their bikes at the main entrance during their visit to the Botanical Garden. In June 2019 the fairground was rebuilt. Thanks to a donation from the Stadtsparkasse Solingen, the floor of the fairground was brought to an even, even surface, provided with drainage and a weatherproof multi-purpose floor.

Garden views

SG Botanical Garden 7091-098.jpg

literature

Beate Battenfeld : The most beautiful thing in bloom for us - The Solingen Botanical Garden , Current History, Volume 2, Solingen 2006, ISBN 3-925626-29-8