The change in climate has been a particular headache for Radscheit and his colleagues this year. Those looking forward to magnificent blooms in almost late spring-like weather on the first day of opening of the Botanical Gardens this season would have been a little disappointed on Sunday. “Many plants sprouted very early and very quickly this year,” reports Radscheit. The first Sunday in April was too late for them and in future an earlier start to the season in the middle of March will be considered.

However, many other flowers, trees and shrubs are ready for the off. The peonies will bloom in a few days. Radscheit also points out many other plants worthy of mention at the moment. One example is the paulownia tree that the traveller to Japan and employee of the Dutch East India Company, Philipp Franz von Siebold, brought with him from Japan in the 19th century.

To mark the 70th anniversary of the death of Max Löbner, who established a horticultural research institute in Friesdorf exactly a century ago, Radscheit shows Löbner’s Magnolia. “The Beethoven among Bonn’s gardeners” according to Radscheit, he cultivated the hybrid from the Star and Kobushi magnolias.

Magnolias are living fossils – they are among the oldest flowering plants in the world and possibly delighted the dinosaurs – and will in future get a lot more space in Poppelsdorf. During the winter season, Radscheit and his colleagues planted a grove of rare magnolia trees. Radscheit is sure that: “In five years it will be a new crowd puller.”

Hundreds of visitors enjoyed the first day of the season. With around 120,000 visitors every year, the Botanical Gardens are third most popular attraction in Bonn after the Haus der Geschichte and the Bundeskunsthalle. (Orig. text: Martin Wein)