The Botanical Garden of Polissia National University in Zhytomyr is the city’s largest green research site: 36.5 hectares, hundreds of tree and shrub species, peony, lilac and rhododendron collections, and four lakes where black swans live in the warm months. Here is its history, what to see, what blooms when and how to visit.
More on this topic: botanical gardens of Ukraine, when peonies bloom, when lilac blooms, Hryshko Botanical Garden.
The garden was founded in 1933 as a teaching and research base of the Zhytomyr Agricultural Institute. At first it covered just 2 hectares of food, industrial, medicinal and fodder crops. It later grew to 6 hectares, with an alley of Amur cork trees and, in 1938–1940, a small arboretum. Botany head O. L. Baranovskyi developed it further, adding a collection of several dozen grape varieties, a dwarf-rootstock nursery and hazelnuts. Before the war the arboretum held about 300 species and forms.
In 1941–1944 the collections, seed bank and most trees were destroyed, and the garden had to be rebuilt from 126 surviving species and forms. In 1983–1993, under V. T. Kharchyshyn, a three-storey Hutsul-style building with laboratories and a lecture hall was built, and about 40 plant groupings were planted in the arboretum — lilac, rhododendron, iris, Siberian pine, beech, box and Japanese quince. Research here underpins four doctoral and about 30 candidate dissertations.
Today the garden covers 36.5 hectares, belongs to Polissia National University and is part of Ukraine’s nature reserve fund.
The arboretum holds over 350 tree and shrub species, and the garden as a whole has hundreds of woody and more than a thousand herbaceous species. Look out for:
Research plots include giant miscanthus, studied as an energy crop, and a collection of rare Polissia plants.
Dates are approximate and depend on the weather.
Hours can change — check the university’s announcements before you go. Other gardens in Ukraine are covered in botanical gardens of Ukraine.
The garden’s jewels are its four lakes. The university dredged them, reinforced the banks and added terraces, gazebos, benches and paved paths along the water. In the warm months black swans live here — the visitors’ favourite photo subject. Do not feed them bread: it harms the birds and pollutes the water. The garden is considering adding aquatic and marginal plants — water lilies, reedmace, water plantain — to turn the lakes into a living display.
The garden is large, so to see the highlights follow roughly this route:
Allow 1.5–2 hours at an easy pace.
The Polissia University garden is first of all a research and teaching base. It acclimatises trees and shrubs suitable for greening towns and forestry in Polissia, studies aromatic and medicinal plants and conserves the region’s rare and endangered species. Agronomy and veterinary students hold practical classes on the research plots, and a plant-health plot grows cereals, vegetables, berries and ornamentals.
The research plots are a working area for scientists, and on weekdays the garden serves mainly students. That is why it opens for free walks at weekends, while weekday tours are agreed with the university in advance.
There are few labels by the plants, so a tour with a scientist is the best way to get to know the collection.
Zhytomyr media reports about the garden most often mention:
The main tip is to come on a weekend morning and behave as you would in a nature reserve — in the first days after opening some visitors damaged plants.
What to photograph through the seasons:
Peonies, roses or hydrangeas like those in the garden can be given without visiting: flower delivery in Zhytomyr, for family and friends in the city.
See roses and flowers in a box.
39 Korolova Street; it belongs to Polissia National University.
Yes: every Saturday and Sunday 10:00–16:00 with free entry, and on weekdays by tour arrangement. Check the university’s announcements.
Yes, black swans live on its lakes in the warm months.
Free at weekends; weekday tours and photo shoots by arrangement with the university.
Black swans on the lakes, tree peonies, spring lilacs and rhododendrons, and rare trees such as ginkgo, sweet chestnut and Siberian pine.
May–June, when lilacs, rhododendrons and peonies bloom and the swans are on the lakes; in autumn, for golden ginkgo.
Author: Maria Svitlovir
Graduated from Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, Institute of Biology and Medicine (2001). BSc in Biology, MSc in Horticulture. Writes about plants, works at a garden centre selecting and repotting plants, and contributes to plant reference guides.
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