Silvarium Forest Garden in Poczopek

Silvarium is a forest garden run by the foresters of the Krynki Forest District on the edge of the Knyszyn Forest in north-eastern Poland. It is neither a botanical garden nor a zoo: it shows what grows and lives in the forests of Podlasie every day, brought together in a small space and labelled so that it is easier to notice. The garden is open all year round, from dawn to dusk.

What to see

The garden is a network of paths around a pond on the Poczopkówka stream and a forest brook, with wooden footbridges and information boards. Along the way you will find more than a dozen stations:

• The Megalith Park, stone circles made of huge boulders.
• The Forest Sundial, made from a polished block of stone, and an analemmatic sundial of flat stones set in the grass in the shape of a tree trunk with branches. The pointer is the shadow of a person standing on it.
• The xylotheque, a "library of trees" where trunks of different species stand upright side by side.
• The herb path, with plants labelled on small signs.
• A log beehive made from a hollow trunk with a straw roof, and a Bird House on stilts with entrance holes for small birds.
• A wooden double shrine to the patron saints of foresters and hunters.
• A stork nest near the pond.

Gallery on the Edge of the Forests

A building next to the garden houses a natural history exhibition with dioramas of the animals of the Knyszyn Forest: lynx, roe deer, European bison, fox and hares. The gallery is open Monday to Friday 7:00–15:00 and, since 15 May 2025, also on Saturdays and Sundays 9:00–17:00. Because arrangements may change, the forest district asks visitors to confirm by phone (+48 85 722 96 47, on weekdays).

Tripto tip

Silvarium is in Poczopek in the municipality of Szudziałowo (Poczopek 6D), next to the Krynki Forest District office. Allow 1–1.5 hours for a relaxed walk round the garden and a visit to the gallery. It is liveliest from spring to autumn, when the herbs are in flower and the storks are on their nest. The trip combines well with the Tatar mosques in Kruszyniany and Bohoniki and the small town of Krynki.