Galați Botanical Garden (Grădina Botanică Galați) is an 18-hectare botanical garden in Galați, laid out on sloping ground above the Danube as part of the city’s Natural Sciences Museum institution. Its collections are arranged in thematic areas for Romanian and world flora, ornamental and useful plants, a Japanese garden, greenhouses and a large Rosarium.
Plans for a botanical garden on this part of the riverfront appeared as early as 1959, when the municipality proposed a larger recreational development that also included landscaping along the Danube. Planting continued intermittently in the following decades, helped by self-taught horticulturist Gheorghe Vanghele, who propagated ornamental species and obtained seeds through exchanges with correspondents abroad. The present Botanical Garden was formally established in 1990, when 18 hectares were transferred for the new Natural Sciences Museum complex. The grounds were enclosed in 1993, and systematic planting began in 1995 from a landscape design prepared by architect Valentin Donose and Felicia Iliescu.
The garden is organized into distinct thematic sectors, with collections devoted to Romanian flora, plants from Asia, North America and the Mediterranean region, useful and ornamental species, and a Japanese garden with a lake. A greenhouse completed in 2012 contains tropical and subtropical plants, succulents, bromeliads, ferns and other species that cannot remain outdoors year-round. The living collection now comprises more than 80,000 specimens representing over 1,300 taxa.
One of the largest individual sections is the Rosarium, developed from 1996 and opened to visitors in 1997. Spread across about 3.5 hectares, it contains around 6,200 rose plants from roughly 250 varieties, arranged on terraces overlooking the Danube. The garden also includes a smaller sensory garden created in 2014, with aromatic and useful plants, vertical planting, and a tactile walking path.
The garden also includes the Museum of Natural Sciences, with exhibitions on geology, paleontology, zoology and regional biodiversity, as well as an aquarium, planetarium and astronomical observatory. Admission to the garden also covers the museum and aquarium, while the astronomy facilities are ticketed separately.
