Academic Centre
Flowering of the Rhododendron collection is one of the year's most anticipated events in our Botanical Garden. You may be surprised about the vast variety of colors and forms - there are more than 120 different species and registered cultivars in our collection, and it is one of the largest collections throughout the Baltics. Flowering usually starts in late May and early June. The Garden is open every day from 10.00-21.00.
In Latvia, gardeners began to grow rhododendrons in ornamental gardens and landscape in the 20th century, but nowadays they can be found in almost every garden. The introduction and selection work at the Botanical Garden began in 1957 when Professor Rihards Kondratovičs started to study this genus and organized expeditions to Caucasus mountains to collect the very first selection material. Prof. Kondratovičs bred varieties of rhododendrons are also visible in the collection of the Botanical Garden.
