Raffeiner Orchideenwelt (orchid glasshouses, butterfly house and orangery)

The site belongs to the horticultural firm Raffeiner, headquartered in Bolzano with its production site in Gargazon (Reichsstraße 26, Via Nazionale). An undated report by the Lana and Environs tourist office says its founder has worked in horticulture since 1970 and that, after thirty years growing Mediterranean plants in Apulia, he launched the “Orchideenwelt” project. “This spring”, the report says, he began using the huge glasshouses at the entrance to the village to turn that half-hectare space into an adventure park devoted to informing visitors about these plants.

The oldest dated clue is a photograph of the trail, uploaded to Wikimedia Commons by the company and dated 24 September 2015; the “2015” in the footer of the official website is a copyright notice, which does not date the opening. The trail has evolved since: an Italian family blog of November 2022 describes the letter hunt, the butterfly garden with its chrysalis nest, the suspension bridge and the lory aviary, and in 2026 the official website presents an orangery, a “glasshouse entirely devoted to citrus plants”, opened from February, which is meant to continue Bolzano's historic citrus tradition.

The glasshouses stand at the entrance to the village, beside the state road. The Merano tourist office speaks of “huge orchid glass houses” and a space of about half a hectare, while another site gives about 6,000 m² for the whole park; they serve both for growing and for display, and a large glass window gives a glimpse of the rows of orchids in production. On OpenStreetMap two greenhouses are mapped on the production site, one annotated “Zucht Südtirol Orchidee”, together with a greenhouse-horticulture zone.

The trail strings together different atmospheres: information panels at the entrance, an orchid path, banana plants, a suspension bridge, a stream, a pond and a waterfall. It ends at the lory aviary, which visitors can enter.

The official website announces over 500 orchid species and varieties and more than 10,000 plants in the “Orchidarium”; a Merano tourist-office report speaks of more than 500 varieties and 6,000 plants, an Italian botanical-heritage site of more than 12,000 plants, and another tourist portal of about 300 species, out of more than 30,000 known, on display and for sale. These figures do not agree; the most recent is the official website's.

The in-house “Südtirol Orchidee” range, produced from the company's laboratory, comprises more than 150 species and varieties in eighteen genera, including Phalaenopsis, Cattleya, Dendrobium, Oncidium, Paphiopedilum, Masdevallia and Zygopetalum; the site puts the time from sowing to first flower at about five years. The butterfly house is open from April to October (the site's FAQ says November), with a chrysalis nest where metamorphosis can be watched. There are also lories fed at 11:00 and 15:00, koi carp and turtles on view all year, and, since 2026, the citrus house.

The Orchideenwelt lies in Gargazon, on the state road, with a car park; the site, which is wheelchair accessible, also has a bistro, a play area and a shop. The circuit can be done with the letter hunt described in 2022 or with the “Orchidarium Challenge”, whose expedition case is sold at the ticket desk; guided tours are available on request. Butterflies are on view only from April to October, and the site closes from early January to mid-February. Dogs are not admitted on the trail but are welcome at the bistro. No visit length is published.

About ten kilometres away as the crow flies, the large tropical glasshouse of Trauttmansdorff Castle in Merano has its own entry in this atlas.