Growing Alpines in the Schachen Alpine Garden – Bavarian Alps

Jenny Wainwright-Klein has been growing and propagating alpine plants in the rock gardens of the Munich Botanic Garden and the associated Schachen Botanic Garden for over 30 years. Discover the beauty of the alpine plants she has propagated from collecting expeditions to Georgia and Lesotho over the last 17 years.

On top of the Schachen mountain in the Bavarian Alps you can visit a very special garden: The “Alpengarten auf dem Schachen”. The Schachen Alpine Garden, a satellite garden of the Munich Botanic Garden, lies at 1850 m in the Wetterstein Mountains, 120 km south of Munich. Opened in 1901, a large and ever growing collection of alpine plants from Europe to the Carpathians, the Caucasus, Himalayas, the Arctic and North America are represented here, as are alpines from the Drakensberg and Maloti Mountains of South Africa, from New Zealand and Patagonia. The cool, moist summers are particularly suited for the cultivation of plants from the summer monsoon areas of the Himalayas with Meconopsis and Primulas one of the main attractions for visitors in July.

Several paths lead to the peak, one of them is the “king’s path” for it was used by the Bavarian King Ludwig II who had a lodge “just around the corner”. You can bet it has a remarkable panoramic view at this place. It’s a 3 hours walk to get here from the valley some 850 meters below (located at 3280 feet).

Thank you to our lodging partner for the Science Elevated Speaker Series, the Evergreen Lodge at Vail.

Doors open at 4:00p. Light appetizers will be provided. Talk begins at 4:30p.