UMCS Botanical Garden Greenhouses (Szklarnie Ogrodu Botanicznego UMCS)

The Botanical Garden of Maria Curie-Skłodowska University (UMCS) was set up at Sławinek, in the north-west of Lublin, on land to which the university obtained title in 1958. The university senate treats 23 February 1965 as the garden's founding date, and most of today's garden took shape between 1964 and 1970. The greenhouses belong to that first phase: the official site says they were built between 1965 and 1968 as "typical production greenhouses". Two of them were later adapted to gather and display collections for research and teaching. The garden's overall concept is attributed to the architects Oskar and Zofia Hansen, with no mention of the greenhouses.

The garden has been open to visitors since 30 April 1974. A university tender issued on 22 August 2014 documents their upkeep: replacement of a glazed interior partition by polycarbonate panels, rebuilt roof gutters, repainting of the steel sections, and reinforcement of the mechanisms that open part of the roof for ventilation. In 2026 the greenhouses receive visitors on weekdays and on opening weekends announced for the season, the last of which took place on 10 and 11 October.

It consists of 1960s production greenhouses rather than a monumental building. The 2014 tender points to a steel structure: existing 140 mm I-beams to be scraped and repainted, and a 63 m² interior partition, a steel frame fitted with panes of glass, replaced by a steel partition carrying 6 mm transparent polycarbonate sheets. The new gutters run along four lines, three of 34 m and one of 4 m, 106 m in all, which gives an order of magnitude for the length of the bays. Part of the roof slopes opens mechanically for ventilation.

Two of the greenhouses are laid out as collections, with two atmospheres: one for arid-zone plants, the other for humid tropical forest. The floor area: close to 700 m² for the department of tropical and subtropical plants (official site), nearly 1,000 m² in the Polish Wikipedia entry, and 1,200 m² in the garden's 2023 Index Seminum, which refers to all the greenhouses together. Hardy opuntias are displayed outdoors, close by.

More than 2,200 tropical and subtropical taxa are gathered here, according to the official site. The first greenhouse holds over 900 species and varieties of succulents from deserts and semi-deserts, including more than 500 cactus taxa, mostly American: columnar cacti (Cereus peruvianus), Ferocactus and Echinocactus grusonii, which Poles nickname the "mother-in-law's armchair". Gymnocalycium, Mammillaria, Lobivia and Rebutia flower in spring and early summer; Pereskia aculeata and P. grandifolia show that some cacti bear non-succulent leaves. An Agave atrovirens more than 30 years old exceeds 2 m in height and width; from Africa, aloes, Lithops, Haworthia and Pachypodium complete the set.

The second greenhouse is mostly planted with rainforest species: Brachychiton, fig trees and araucarias as the tall trees, and a Platycerium alcicorne over 60 years old received in 2016 from the Jagiellonian University botanical garden in Kraków. There are also useful plants (papaya, pineapple, banana, avocado, black pepper, vanilla, coffee, sugar cane), epiphytic bromeliads, lianas (Passiflora, Aristolochia), orchids, anthuriums and begonias. In October 2026 the garden highlighted Aristolochia gigantea, whose flowers hold insects inside to ensure pollination.

The greenhouses stand within the UMCS Botanical Garden at Sławinek, open from mid-April to the end of October (12 April to 31 October in 2026). They do not follow the garden's hours: they can be visited on weekdays and on a few opening weekends announced each season, with dates published on the university's website. A cactus and succulent show was held in them in June 2025, with a plant sale in front of the greenhouses. The collection can be toured quickly; it combines naturally with a walk through the garden's 21 hectares, where the Dworek Kościuszków manor house requires a separate ticket.