Łódź Botanical Garden

It all began in 1946 with a 1.3-hectare plot of medicinal plants in the city's tree nursery. Today the Jakub Mowszowicz Botanical Garden in Łódź covers 67 hectares, making it one of the largest botanical gardens in Poland, with a Japanese garden, a rock garden and an arboretum bigger than many city parks. It is a good place for an unhurried walk of a few hours in the west of Łódź.

History: from herbs to arboretum

Łódź's first botanical garden was created in 1929 in Źródliska Park, and today's Palm House continues that tradition. After the war, on 19 September 1946, professors Jan Muszyński and Jakub Mowszowicz had a medicinal plant garden set aside next to Park na Zdrowiu, the seed of the present garden. A design competition was held in 1947, but the winning entry was never built. Work to Henryk Tomaszewski's design only started in 1967: the site was divided into plots, the ponds were widened, the rock garden was built and greenhouses went up. The first 20 hectares or so opened to visitors on 19 July 1973, with further sections added gradually. Since 1988 the garden has been named after Jakub Mowszowicz.

What to see

The garden holds more than 3,500 species and varieties, displayed in nine sections. The highlights:

• the Japanese garden (2 ha) by two ponds in the north-east, with plants from Japan, China and elsewhere in East Asia,
• the rock garden, built from boulders with winding paths, Carpathian bellflowers, rhododendrons, Swiss stone pine and Serbian spruce,
• the arboretum, the largest section at 18.7 ha in the south of the garden,
• the Polish flora section (9.2 ha) on the site of the old city nursery,
• the medicinal and industrial plants section, the oldest, with St John's wort, horsetail, evening primrose and soapwort,
• a collection of roses and rhododendrons in the ornamental plants section.

Did you know?

A themed path features six sundials, including a floral one, an analemmatic one and an obelisk with an analemma. The garden was free at first; tickets were introduced in the late 1980s because of vandalism and theft. In 2018 the city classed it as part of its contemporary cultural heritage. Since 25 April 2026 a Moomin figure has stood by the entrance as part of the Łódź fairy-tale trail.

Tripto tip

The main entrance is at ul. Krzemieniecka 36/38 (corner of Konstantynowska), with further gates on ul. Retkińska and ul. Kusocińskiego. Allow 2–3 hours for a full loop including the Japanese and rock gardens; rhododendrons flower in spring, and the arboretum looks best in autumn. Note that the Palm House belongs to the garden but stands elsewhere, in Źródliska Park on the eastern side of the centre. The garden borders Park na Zdrowiu, Łódź Zoo and the Polesie Konstantynowskie nature reserve, so you can easily spend a whole green day here. Check opening hours and ticket prices on the garden's website before you go.