Botanical Exchange Program: Goodbye Volgograd

Today we had an early flight out of Volgograd. It was bitter sweet to say goodbye to Oleg, who has been so wonderful this who expedition, and start making our way back home. I will never forget my time in Volgograd and I hope to return one day and see my Syringa growing at the base of Mamayev Hill.

The Syringa I helped plant

We landed in Moscow and got a tour of Moscow Main Botanical Garden from Mikhail Romanov who I also meet last year when he came to America with Oleg.
Mikhail is the head of the conservatories in Main Botanical Garden, so that is where he started. The old greenhouses like the rest of the garden is 70 years old. There are 5 greenhouses open to the public for display as well as smaller greenhouses that are closed that house their collections.

Azaleas they had on display

Rhododendron species

Wollemi Pine, it is the largest I have ever seen, one of the largest in cultivation

Orchids they just had donated from Ecuador, these are orchids with only roots and flowers

Plants collected in America growing in the greenhouse

Cacti and Succulent collection

One thing I really liked were the transparent labels they had printed for some of their collections, they said they don't fade in the sun and are easy to print

He also showed us their new conservatories underdevelopment. It will be such an amazing display area when they are completed.

All climate controlled, their older houses are hard to keep heated in the winter

Pools for Nymphea collection

It will display many different tropical and subtropical plants

After the conservatories we took a tour of the grounds. The Main Botanical Garden is huge, 700 acres, it is mostly forested with very old oak forest at the center. We took some time to walk through the Japanese garden.

Designed and built in 1987

The Japanese garden is one of the very few places people have to pay money to view the rest of the garden is open 24 hours to people absolutely free.

Next we went to the oldest botanical garden in Moscow. It is the Moscow University Garden and it is located closer to the center of the city. Due to its location and the way the city has grown up around it, the garden is very sheltered so it had many early plants in bloom.

It is a garden mostly focused on display.

They forced some tulips and included them in the display.

Dwarf Conifers

It was founded 309 years ago as an apothecary garden. It was then purchased by Peter the First or as we call him Peter the Great and given to the University.

They remodeled their greenhouses and instead of completely removing the original structure they kept some of the features standing and have incorporated them into the display.