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Garden open 4th January - 23th December. Garden. Feb, Mar & Oct, 10am - 5pm; Apr - Sept, 10am - 6pm; Nov - Jan, 10am - 4pm. Glasshouses close half an hour before the gardens, Shop 15 minutes before.
Strictly by prior booking.
Beautiful all year round.
Adult £4; Child (16 & under) Free, if accompanied by adult; Over 60s £3.50; Friends membership Single £28, Joint £45.
An admission charge is made on weekdays, March 1st to October 31 and weekends & Bank Holidays throughout the year. Admission is free at all times for Friends of Cambridge University Botanic Garden carrying a valid Friends Membership Card, and for Cambridge University students on production of a valid University Card at all times.
Guide dogs only. Additional admission charge on special event days.
The garden also holds important collections of Lavenders and British wild plant species.
Hardy Geranium, Tulipa, Alchemilla, Saxifraga, Fritillaria also Shrubby Lonicera.
Cambridge Garden House University Arms Hotel Arundel Hotel
Cambridge Quy Mill Midsummer House Brown's Twenty-Two
Many locally
The garden is situated less than 1 mile to the south of the city centre of historic Cambridge, where cafes, restaurants and hotels abound. Within 5 mins. walk from the railway station.
The Cambridge University Botanic Garden was opened on its present location in 1846 and now holds a treasure trove of some 8,000 plant species. This heritage landscape features the Rock Garden, displaying the alpine plants from every continent of the world, the Winter and Autumn Gardens, tropical rainforest and seasonal displays in the Glasshouses, the historic Systemic Beds which display the hardy representatives of more than 80 families of flowering plants, and the finest collection of trees in the East of England.
The Botanic Garden has been designed with year-round interest in mind and some part of it will be looking wonderful or smelling gorgeous whenever you visit. After discovering the remarkable use of berry, bark and foliage in the beautiful winter garden, you can warm up in the glasshouses and travel from the tropics to the desert in search of cacti, carnivous plants, orchards and the extraordinary Jade Vine, in flower from February to March. The Herbaceous borders, Scented Gardens and Dry Garden are a colourful highlight of summer, but don't miss the jewelled carpet of spring bulbs and early alpines in the Woodland and Rock Gardens or the foliage fireworks of the Autumn Garden.
But the garden is much more than just a beautiful and restful green space. It is here to celebrate the plants themselves. As you walk through the garden you will experience the exuberance and diversity of plant life and witness the beauty of flowers, the patterns and textures of leaves, and the rich surfaces of trunks and branches.
The Botanic Garden of Cambridge University was founded in 1762 on a 2-hectare site in the centre of the city. It was a typical Renaissance physic garden modelled on the Chelsea Physic Garden in London, and grew mainly herbaceous plants. We owe the vision for a new, enlarged Botanic Garden which was established on its current site in 1846, to John Stevens Henlow, professor of Botany 1825 - 1860, now perhaps best remembered as the teacher and mentor of Charles Darwin.
The eastern part of the original land was incorporated into the Botanic Garden in the 1950's and has a very different feel from the western Victorian garden. The Victorian section celebrates individual species and brings them together to create beautiful landscapes developed with horticultural skill. The new part of the garden is a creation of the 20th century and celebrates our understanding of interactions between different species. Thus the 20th century science of ecology permeates the development of its plantings, and the new displays here are thematic rather than species-centred.