Meise Botanic Garden & Bouchout Domain

Domein van de Plantentuin van Meise is a château at Meise, Vlaams-Brabant, in Belgium. The recorded building campaigns date from the 17th, 18th, 19th and 20th centuries. The register records it as “beschermd onroerend erfgoed”. Details are drawn from the Inventaris Onroerend Erfgoed (Vlaanderen).

Combining 92 hectares of historic estate parkland with international botanical conservation, Meise Botanic Garden traces its history to Brussels in 1797 before relocating to the historic Bouchout and Meise castle domains in 1938. The site is anchored by the medieval Castle of Bouchout, once the residence of Empress Carlota of Mexico. The estate parkland represents a layered historical landscape. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the grounds were landscaped in the English picturesque manner, sculpting serpentine lakes, wooded islands, and sweeping meadows that frame vistas of the fortified water castle. In the twentieth century, living plant collections were integrated into this historic fabric. The garden is renowned for its glasshouse architecture, notably the monumental Victoria Greenhouse designed by royal court architect Alphonse Balat (mentor to Victor Horta) in 1854, featuring the giant Victoria amazonica water lily. In 2023, the cutting-edge Green Ark glasshouse complex opened, safeguarding over 10,000 endangered plant species from across the globe. Today, Meise Botanic Garden houses over 18,000 plant species, an internationally renowned herbarium of four million specimens, and a historic arboretum containing veteran European and exotic champion trees.

Inventaris Onroerend Erfgoed (Vlaanderen) · 134059 — Modellicentie Gratis Hergebruik / CC BY-SA 4.0

Wikimedia Commons · https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:FilePath/Serre%20Balat%20Plantentuin%2C%20Meise%2010.jpg — CC BY-SA 4.0

Discover the architecture and history of this place at Le Roi du Château.