Julia and Alexander Ν. Diomedes Botanic Garden, Botanical garden in Haidari district, Greece
The Julia and Alexander N. Diomedes Botanic Garden is a large outdoor space organized into distinct areas for trees, ornamental plants, and medicinal herbs. The grounds include research facilities, greenhouse structures, and walking paths that connect the different sections.
Alexander Diomedes, a former finance and foreign minister and National Bank governor, left bequests that fund the garden's foundation. In 1961, after the Ministry of Agriculture granted the land, landscaping began to plans by Herta Hammerbacher of the University of Berlin. The garden opened to the public in 1975.
The garden was named after its donors Alexander and Julia Diomedes and today serves the University of Athens as a living laboratory for plant study and conservation. Walking through, visitors notice how different sections support both teaching and scientific inquiry.
The garden lies 8 km from central Athens, north of Aigaleo, its grounds running from after the Dromokaiteio Psychiatric Hospital along the Iera Odos to the former EOT tourist pavilion, now belonging to the Municipality of Chaidari. The site is divided into six sections: Historical, Flower Garden, Arboretum, Economic, Medicinal and Systematic.
The garden's herbarium holds more than 16,000 dried plant specimens, a collection built alongside the living beds. Its six sections are thematic: a historical section for plants named in ancient texts and mythology, a flower bed area, a tree grove, an economic section of Greek flora, a medicinal section and a systematic section for teaching plant families.
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