Project of Kuhmuhne Schönhagen e.V. for biological diversity

Welcome to the Schönhagen show garden
Experience over 300 almost forgotten and unusual vegetables, herbs and flowers and their history(ies)! Our aim is to preserve the rich biological diversity in the show garden.

Crop diversity you can touch
The show garden was opened in 2003 on the grounds of the non-profit association Kuhmuhne Schönhagen e.V. in Schönhagen near Bad Heiligenstadt with the help of the regional federal program "Eichsfeld aktiv". Since then, we have been delighted to welcome more and more enthusiastic visitors from all over Germany. At the moment, the garden is financed by donations as well as entrance fees.
The lovingly designed garden is located right next to a threshing machine propagation farm in the beautiful Eichsfeld countryside, which is also ideal for hiking. In close cooperation with Dreschflegel, knowledge about organic cultivation, propagation and use of our cultivated plants is passed on as part of the project "Seed care and crop diversity - a cultural task".
The individual segments of the circular layout show the introduction of many cultivated plants to Central Europe in historical order. On a tour, visitors travel back in time through the gardens of the Neolithic Age, the Middle Ages and the present day and learn where the wealth of our useful plants comes from, see the species that have fallen into oblivion again and experience how diverse our gardens could be today.

Among other things, the garden is committed to reviving and preserving old, special vegetable varieties and forgotten cultivated plant species such as woad and oat root by establishing a collection of Eichsfeld varieties.

Crops that are not (yet) commonly grown here but are possible, such as tiger nuts or asparagus salad, round off the variety.