Glasshouses of the Neuchâtel Botanical Garden (Ermitage valley)

The glasshouses belong to the Ermitage valley site, where the Botanical Garden of the University of Neuchâtel settled after several moves. A first garden had been laid out in 1884 around the building on avenue du Premier-Mars, reserved for teaching and closed to the public; in 1954, at the initiative of Professor Claude Favarger, it moved to the Mail hill. A project to install it in the Ermitage valley was drawn up in 1989; work began in 1991, lasted six years and accompanied the transfer of the collections, and the garden was inaugurated in early June 1998.

In 2006 the State of Neuchâtel asked the university to cut its share of the funding and closure of the garden was for a time feared; a petition by the friends' association gathered 12,720 signatures, handed to the Council of State in February 2007, and a foundation was created in May 2007. Since 1 January 2014 the garden has been the fourth museum of the City of Neuchâtel.

The three glasshouses open to the public stand in a line from west to east, and their contents follow a climate gradient: tropical useful plants in the west, a drier semi-desert flora in the centre, a lush subtropical atmosphere in the east. On the open map OpenStreetMap they form a single built outline, close to the Jardin de l'évolution, and a photograph in the French Wikipedia shows that garden in the foreground and the glasshouses behind.

The University of Neuchâtel also uses the garden's glasshouses for experiments (wheat, red fescue, plantain), under conditions the researchers describe as not fully controlled: the air is not filtered, and temperature and light vary.

According to the official page, the three glasshouses aim to present a few elements of tropical diversity, with an emphasis on succulents from Madagascar, useful tropical plants and subtropical plants. The western house shows banana (Musa acuminata), rice (Oryza sativa) and coffee (Coffea arabica).

The central house holds many kalanchoes and aloes, as well as a few bottle trees such as Moringa hildebrandtii or Pachypodium lamerei. The eastern house gathers plants from South Africa, Brazil, China or Australia: birds of paradise (Strelitzia), bananas (Musa), peppers (Piper) and members of the ginger family.

At garden level, Wikipedia counts more than 3,000 species in eight collections, only one of them devoted to the subtropical flora in glasshouses.

The garden stands on chemin du Pertuis-du-Sault in the Ermitage valley, reached from the station by buses 106 and 109 or by the Ecluse-Plan funicular; paths and toilets are adapted for people with reduced mobility. Admission is free, and the glasshouses open every day, with shorter hours in winter.

The visit combines with the neighbouring collections: the Jardin de l'évolution, the Alpinum Claude Favarger, and the herb garden of more than 180 medicinal plants beside the Villa, which houses an exhibition space and a café.