Donetsk: Steppe, Plant Collections and Garden Art

The Botanical Garden gives Donetsk a distinctive botanical character: extensive plant collections sit alongside themed garden areas across 203 hectares. The grounds lie on the border between Donetsk and Makiivka. Steppe, plants from the Far East and different forms of garden art each add their own distinctive touch. If you would like to include these themes in your travel plans, the garden offers several specific highlights that differ in their landscapes, design and plant collections.

Steppe, protected species and distinctive soils

In the southern section is the 8.5-hectare “Steppes of the Donbas” exhibition, an artificially created feather-grass steppe with 420 species. The “Steppes of the Donbas” collection includes more than 200 rare, endemic, relict and endangered species; around 180 of these are listed in Red Data Books and conservation lists.

The collection complex includes, among other things, 120 species of steppe and woodland-edge plants, as well as 174 species of medicinal plants. Another exhibition, “Edaphic Variants of the Steppes of the Donbas,” presents vegetation from rocky granite and chalk outcrops, as well as sandy steppes characteristic of the natural environment of the Donbas, under specially created conditions. In this way, specific plant collections are paired with displays of different habitat types.

Garden spaces with Far Eastern design

The Japanese Garden is designed as a strolling garden. It combines a rock garden, a landscape garden, a Dry Stream and a water garden with a pond. In the Dry Stream, pebbles and phlox blooming in spring symbolise the flow of water. These elements bring together different garden styles with a specially designed symbol of water.

The collection of Japanese and Far Eastern flora comprises 58 species of woody plants and 60 species of perennial herbaceous plants. The Japanese Garden therefore focuses both on spatial design and on its plant collection.

Collections ranging from tropical plants to lilacs

Numbers in the collections can change over time as they develop. Overall, the garden contains more than 8,000 plant taxa, including over 3,000 tropical and subtropical taxa kept in the collection’s greenhouses. One greenhouse is home to lemons, limes, grapefruits, oranges, mandarins, papayas, feijoas, guavas, coffee, Murraya, Barbados cotton and paprika peppers, among other plants.

Established in 1978, the “Syringarium” comprises 20 species and forms, as well as 140 varieties of lilac. These include nine early-flowering varieties of hyacinth lilac, a Preston hybrid and other varieties of common lilac, including cultivars developed by the garden. In addition to its collection of woody plants, the “Rare Woody Plants” exhibition features the themed areas “Seabed,” “Juniper” and “Topiary.”

A garden with a history

The Donetsk Botanical Garden was founded in 1964. Since 1981, it has been a garden and park monument. Its founding year and monument status add historical context to its botanical collections.

Discover more destinations

Horlivka, Kostiantynivka, Mariupol, Bilosarais'ka Kosa, Kramatorsk, Nyzhnya Krynka, Shchurove, Sloviansk

For the overview of the wider region: Donetsk Oblast.