Botanical Garden in Brynek

The botanical garden in Brynek is a school garden, established in 1946 in the central part of the palace and park complex that belonged to the Henckel von Donnersmarck family. The complex is home to a forestry technical school, and its pupils have been learning botany here for decades. The collections now have the character of an arboretum: about 400 taxa of trees and shrubs grow in them.

Where the garden came from

The garden was created at the Forestry Grammar School, from 1952 the Forestry Technical School, as a teaching facility, mainly for the needs of forest botany. The founder and first custodian was the forest botany teacher Henryk Eder, an engineer, later head of the arboretum in Rogów. All the work was done by pupils, and it is still so today: the garden is looked after by pupils under the direction of the botany teacher.

From 1958 to 1990 the garden's custodian was the botany teacher Norbert Gerlich. From the end of the 1950s to the mid-1990s the department of systematics of herbaceous forest-floor plants was of particular importance. Its role has now been taken over by the collection of trees and shrubs, which gives the garden the character of an arboretum.

What grows here

The garden has a collection of trees and shrubs, a section of climbers, and ponds and streams with aquatic and marsh plants. The trees and shrubs come mainly from Asia and North America. Among the most valuable collections are groups of rhododendrons and azaleas growing around the ponds, specimens of magnolias, katsura trees, witch hazels, cork trees, barberries and hawthorns, as well as yews, arborvitae and false cypresses, firs, hemlocks and Douglas firs, and numerous species of oaks, maples and birches.

Nearby

The garden lies in the same complex as the Brynek water tower, a few dozen metres away. From Brynek it is also not far to the Palace in Rybna, a former residence from the end of the 18th century, today a cultural institution.

Practical information

• Location: Brynek, Tarnowskie Góry County, the grounds of the palace and park complex by the forestry technical school (Stanisław Morawski Comprehensive and Ecological School Complex).
• Owner: since 2000 the county office in Tarnowskie Góry; the school uses the garden on a loan basis.
• Check the rules of entry and opening hours with the school or the county office before your visit.
• In 2021 it was found that the garden needs revitalisation (the fence, the culvert and causeway of the main pond, paths and alleys, care of old trees), so the condition of individual parts may vary.