The Museum Garden

The signature tree of the Museum Garden. A beautiful whitebeam that grows in only a few places in Western Norway. It has unusually large berries with many uses. The cultivar is named after the former professor of botany Knut Fægri, and the tree has stood here since about 1910.

The world's most famous temple tree comes from China and has been cultivated for thousands of years. It is known for its beautiful two-lobed leaves and is the only species in its group of seed plants that is neither a conifer nor a flowering plant. Our tree was planted around 1930 and is said to be the largest in Norway. Ginkgo is a “living fossil”, known from fossils more than 250 million years old.

The world's most famous temple tree originates from China and has been cultivated for thousands of years. It is known for its beautiful two-lobed leaves and is neither a conifer nor a flowering plant, but represents its own group of seed plants. It is the only living species in its group and is described as a living fossil. Fossils of ginkgo-like plants are known from more than 250 million years ago. Our tree was planted around 1930 and is said to be the largest in Norway. Ginkgo trees are either male or female, and ours is a male tree.

The handkerchief tree, also known as the dove tree, has round, dense flower clusters surrounded by a pair of thin, white bracts. The bracts have been compared to handkerchiefs, and they fall off after flowering. These unique trees came from China and were first described in the 1870s. We have three handkerchief trees of different ages in the Museum Garden, the oldest of which was planted in 1930.

On Kastanjehaugen (Chestnut Hill), outside the Historical Museum, stands a tight group of conifers. These are Japanese umbrella pines, planted in 1927. This unusual species grows wild in Japan and is very ancient – more than 200 million years old. It was widespread when the great dinosaurs lived. What look like needles arranged in a whorl are, curiously, flattened green shoots. The Japanese umbrella pine also has unusual, rose-shaped cones.

Camellias are close relatives of the tea plant and can be used to make tea, but they are grown for their beautiful flowers, and there are many cultivars. Every April, 'Brigadoon' flowers with large, pink, semi-double blooms. We grow autumn-, winter- and spring-flowering camellias.

The common nasturtium is grown by many as a summer flower, but this South American genus also includes many other colourful climbers, in yellow, blue and red. Several are perennials, and some can be grown here, overwintering by means of deep, carrot-like roots. Since 1930, the silverleaf nasturtium from the mountains of Chile and Argentina has flowered every year in the Museum Garden.

The monkey puzzle tree is a conifer from the Andes in South America and is threatened in the wild. It prefers a cool, rainy climate and has thrived in Bergen. It is the only species in its genus hardy enough for this climate, but it is related to the Norfolk Island pine (Araucaria heterophylla), commonly grown as a houseplant. Its needles are flat, broad and sharply pointed. Its English name comes from a 19th-century remark that climbing the tree would puzzle even a monkey.

The tulip tree is a large and beautiful broadleaved tree from the south-eastern United States, related to magnolia. It has very distinctive leaves that look as if their tips have been cut off. The flowers are yellow-green and orange, somewhat tulip-shaped, but hard to see as they grow high up in the tree. Our tree was planted in 1960, but under favourable conditions tulip trees can grow to over 50 m tall and live for several hundred years.

The Old Garden lies in the north-eastern part of the Museum Garden. Its layout has largely remained unchanged since the garden was laid out in the 1890s, and it still has paths and beds with rounded shapes. Here the systematic collection begins with a group of conifers, including the monkey puzzle tree, dawn redwood, Japanese cedar, Leyland cypress, and two large, ancient yew trees. On the lawn in the centre of the Old Garden is a collection of magnoliids, an ancient group of flowering plants that includes magnolia, tulip tree and relatives of laurel. On the slope towards the Museum of Cultural History, the systematic collection continues with large bamboo species and other representatives of the monocotyledons.

The hill and lawn facing the Museum of Cultural History are planted with trees from the walnut, maple, birch and beech families, all of which belong systematically to the large rosid group. Most were planted in the mid-1920s. Naturally, a genuine sweet chestnut (in the beech family) also grows here at the top of Chestnut Hill. Beside the memorial stone from Dale in Fjaler municipality stands our grove of Japanese umbrella pines and a few other unusual conifers. A dawn redwood planted around 1950 stands in the middle of the lawn. There is also a smaller collection of roses and other shrubs here, including several mock oranges, among which Philadelphus pekinensis stands out with pink sepals combined with white, fragrant flowers.

All life ultimately depends on plants, though most of us rarely think about it. In the useful plants garden, we show examples of plants that are directly useful to people. This garden room was created in 1974 and is framed by a hedge of alpine currant and an espalier of modern apple varieties. Its various thematic sections include old and new culinary herbs (rosemary, lovage, cumin, black caraway and more); plants of pleasure (hops, wormwood, tobacco, etc.); food plants, including several cereals, buckwheat, onions, cabbages and potatoes; and medicinal plants. There are also fibre plants, which yield various useful plant fibres, and dye plants, which give textiles green, yellow, red or blue colours.

The especially favourable conditions here allow slightly heat-loving plants to thrive. The beds have early spring-flowering plants, and a little later the perennial silverleaf nasturtium from the Andes comes into flower; it arrived in the Museum Garden in 1930. The Rock Bed also holds many unusual and tender shrubs, including Olearia x haastii, a natural hybrid from New Zealand; Sarcococca, an early-flowering member of the box family; several rhododendrons; daphne; and a collection of 14 different camellia cultivars. The Rock Bed was completed in 1927; an artificial burial mound previously stood on the site.

The world's largest water lily, Victoria, comes from South America. Its leaves have an upturned rim and can reach up to 3 m in diameter. We grow Victoria cruziana, one of three species in this genus; our plants come from Paraguay. We also grow a somewhat smaller relative, Euryale ferox from Asia, with small purple flowers and flat leaves. The heated Victoria pond was built in the 1960s. The pond used to be covered over in winter until, in 2019, a donation made it possible to build a glasshouse over it. The Victoria House has a warm, humid, tropical climate all year round, and the water temperature in the pond is kept constant at 28°C.

The Alpine Bed holds plants from high-mountain regions around the world. Plants at high altitude are often low, creeping dwarf shrubs or perennials. Just as they grow in the mountains, we cultivate them on and between rocks and in crevices. Here grow dwarf shrubs (mountain avens, willow, Rhododendron, Ruscus and Coprosma, among others) and low perennials (saxifrages, cinquefoils, houseleeks and Haberlea), as well as a number of taller perennials from mountain meadows. Many spring-flowering bulbs and corms are also grown on both sides of the path. Some plants are very small, so please tread carefully.

The Water Garden is the garden's main area for ornamental plants. Around the three ponds are garden cultivars of many rhododendrons, and a range of perennials such as coral bells, anemone, plantain lily, Peruvian lily, saxifrage and astilbe. On the island in the middle pond stands a large Gunnera with its enormous leaves. Water lilies and other aquatic plants grow in the ponds. This was originally a marshy area that was filled in when the garden was laid out in the 1890s. A lawn and round flower beds were established here, later replaced by the Water Garden, completed in 1931.

The Glasshouse at the top of the garden consists of a 10 m high Palm House at its centre, flanked by lower wings – one warm and humid, the other cool. The warm section holds a rich collection of palms, orchids, bananas, papyrus and cacao trees, while the cool section holds further orchids, citrus trees, tree ferns, cacti and other succulents.
The Glasshouse was a gift from the merchant Conrad Mohr. It was inaugurated and opened on 4 October 1901. The building has been altered on a couple of occasions; among other things, the roof of the Palm House has been raised and its original rounded shape changed.

When the garden was completed in 1898, the plants – above all the trees and shrubs – were arranged by kinship, in a systematic sequence based on the science of the time. Conifers were placed to the north, and plants then considered most advanced (flowering plants with fused petals) were planted on the other side of the museum, facing Muséplassen. We are now working to update the system so that it reflects current scientific knowledge. The System is marked in dark green on the map.