Breidings Garten, Landscape garden in Soltau, Germany

Breidings Garten is a 12-hectare landscape park south of Soltau's centre, laid out from 1850 in the floodplain of the Böhme. At its centre stands an Italian-style villa on a slight rise; a stair leads down to a pleasure ground of lawn and flower beds crossed by curved paths, followed by the Great Pond with fountain, then meadow and groups of trees. An artificial castle ruin at the pond's north edge doubles as a water reservoir.

August Röders, founder of the bed-feather and felt firm Carl Breiding & Sohn, laid out the garden from 1850, starting with trees, shrubs, ponds, paths and a small country house that was later rebuilt as an Italian-style villa. An artificial castle ruin followed in 1870, and the rhododendron plantings date from the 1930s. Bombs and an exploded munitions wagon damaged the park at the end of the Second World War, and a 1972 storm caused further losses.

The name Breidings Garten comes from Carl Breiding & Sohn, the bed-feather and felt firm of August Röders, who laid out the park from 1850. Since 2007 the volunteer association Breidings Garten e.V. has tended the grounds, selling postcards and photo calendars and holding photo exhibitions; the Breidings Garten foundation rents the villa and parts of the park for weddings, conferences and film shoots.

Breidings Garten lies south of Soltau's centre in the floodplain of the Böhme, so the ground stays damp and the water table is high. From the Italian-style villa a staircase leads down to the Pleasureground lawn, then on to the Große Teich with its fountain; the park landscape and the lime avenue toward Tetendorf lie beyond. The artificial castle ruin at the north edge of the pond also stores water for the fountain and irrigation.

The garden holds 38 tree species, among them a single Canadian hemlock and a single Nordmann fir. A dawn redwood from China and a Sawara cypress from Japan stand alongside North American species such as Douglas fir and tulip tree. The artificial castle ruin doubles as a water reservoir feeding the fountain and the park irrigation.