Greenhouses of the Jardin botanique de Tours (Biodivers houses and Jeanne Barret greenhouse)

Tours' botanical garden stands on drained former marshland crossed by the Sainte-Anne stream. It was built between 1831 and 1843; Wikipedia gives 1843 as its founding, by public subscription. The impetus came from the pharmacist Jean-Anthyme Margueron (1771-1848), who seized the chance offered by the creation, in 1841, of a preparatory school of medicine and pharmacy that needed a teaching garden. The first greenhouses held about 500 plants. The Loire flooded the garden in 1848 and 1856, to a depth of up to two metres, forcing it to be rebuilt and most of its trees replaced. An orangery and an animal park were added in 1863.

Sources differ on the greenhouses. A City of Tours web page says they were created in 1869, the year the first animals arrived under the direction of Barnsby; Wikipedia mentions new cold, temperate and hot greenhouses built in 1890 under Louis Madelin. Second World War bombing damaged the greenhouses. The northern part was renovated between 1981 and 1983, the garden received the label of Botanical Garden of France and Francophone Countries in 2000, and the collection greenhouses have been renovated since 2007.

The sources consulted give neither an architect nor dimensions for the collection greenhouses: they only establish that they date from the nineteenth century, from 1869 or 1890 depending on the page, and that they have been refurbished since 2007 to become the Biodivers houses. The available descriptions dwell on the presentation of the collections, organised under three themes, more than on the structure itself.

The most recent building is a large orangery-greenhouse built in 2008. It answers a practical need: sheltering large potted plants in winter, as historic orangeries did, and providing an exhibition space in summer. In 2022 it was named the Jeanne Barret greenhouse, in tribute to the explorer and botanist (1740-1807). In 2009 a landscaped area was added north of the greenhouses, planted with trees and shrubs from the Americas and Asia.

The collection greenhouses are organised around three main themes: useful tropical plants, the flora of South Africa, including threatened species, and tropical understory. The useful tropical plants fit the very origin of the garden, tied to a school of pharmacy and to the study of medicinal and exotic plants.

The garden as a whole, over five hectares, grows about 2,000 taxa according to Wikipedia. Outdoors, there is a magnolia avenue with a pool of water lilies and lotus in the north, an English-style arboretum with a pond and a medieval garden of simples in the south, and heath, bog, Mediterranean and alpine gardens in the west. A medicinal garden, with plants arranged by therapeutic action, also presents toxic species.

The greenhouses are visited within the Jardin botanique de la Ville et de l'Université de Tours, on boulevard Tonnellé, which is free to enter; the collection greenhouses have their own opening window, worth checking before the visit. Allow about two hours for the whole garden, longer if an exhibition is on in the Jeanne Barret greenhouse in summer.

The summer exhibitions in the orangery-greenhouse make a good moment for a visit, as does the flowering of the magnolias along the north avenue. The garden combines with the medicinal-plant garden on the same site, arranged by therapeutic properties, and with a stroll through the other themed gardens in the west of the site.