Where Does Your Garden Grow? Trivia Quiz

Situated about 15km north-east of Arrecife on the island of Lanzarote (one of the Canary Islands), the Jardin de Cactus has been created in an old quarry. It was one of the last projects instigated by César Manrique (1919-1992), who is remembered for his many architectural features and artworks all over the island.

Visitors know when they have reached the garden, because there is a giant metal sculpture of a cactus in the car park by the side of the road. The theme continues on entering the garden since the entrance gates are also shaped like cactuses. Once inside, over 4000 cactus plants from all over the world can be seen on the terraces which have been constructed round the sides of the quarry.

The Chelsea Physic Garden in London is one of the oldest botanical gardens in the world. It was established in 1673 by the Worshipful Society of Apothecaries, and used in the training of their apprentices. It was not opened to the public until 1987. It is part of the group of London Museums of Health & Medicine, founded in 1991.

The garden has different sections which include pharmaceutical plants, which are used to heal various ailments, edible and useful plants, and poisonous plants. Initially almost identical poisonous and medicinal plants would be grown beside each other, and the trainee apothecaries would have to learn to distinguish between the two. The garden was also the home of some of the earliest glasshouses; one was installed around 1680, and heated by a stove. The more modern ones were added in 1902, but have subsequently been refurbished.

Situated in the upper part of the valley of the river Loire, the National Arboretum of Les Barres is situated in central France, about 100km south of Paris. The collection was started by members of the Vilmorin family in the nineteenth century. The first trees were mainly European pine trees and oak trees from America. In the early part of the twentieth century trees from eastern Asia were added to the collection.

The collection is split into three parts. The first is described as the Continentalis, and contains trees from around the world grouped according to their country of origin. The second, the Classifica, consists of flowering shrubs and trees, which are grouped according to their type. The last is known as the Bizarretum, which describes "all the trees [as] strange and mysterious", and includes 'weeping' trees, and trees with multiple trunks or twisted trunks. Since 2012, sculptors have been invited to make artworks from some of the dead trees, giving them another lease of life.

The gardens at Keukenhof are about 25km south-west of Amsterdam. A large manor house, now known as Keukenhof Castle, was built in the middle of the sixteenth century on the site of a former kitchen garden. In the nineteenth century, the owners had the gardens redesigned in the 'English style'.

The grounds were acquired, after the Second World War, by a consortium of bulb exporters and growers to provide a site for displaying their wares. The park opened for the first time in 1950, and 200,000 people visited the displays. By the early part of the twenty first century over a million visitors a year visited the park to view about seven million bulbs between March and May each year. The bulbs are planted each autumn. To keep the display going for two months, several bulbs are planted in the same flowerbeds, the shallowest ones bloom first, then the mid-depth bulbs, followed by the deepest ones; each should last for about three weeks.

The Jardin Alpin La Rambertia is an alpine garden, near to the Rochers-de-Naye. It is at an altitude of around 2000m, and about 5km east of Montreux, which is on the shores of Lake Geneva. A railway was built, in 1892, between the two locations. While the train runs all year round, the garden is only open during the summer months, opening after the snow has melted in the spring and closing before the first new snow of the winter.

In 1896 a society was formed to establish the garden in the mountains. The society took the name Rambertia after Eugène Rambert (1830-1886). He was a Swiss teacher and author who is remembered for writing six volumes entitled 'Les Alpes Suisses', which covered a mixture of historical stories, scientific observations, and his own poetry. The garden has a large collection of native Alpine plants, and, in 1996, the Rambertia Society added a section to display some plants from the Himalayas. The plants are grown on steep rocky slopes, which are reached by narrow paths with spectacular views. One visitor described it as "Beautiful and Slightly Terrifying".

The Villa d'Este was built in the sixteenth century about 30km north-east of Rome in the small town of Tivoli. As an outstanding example of renaissance architecture it was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2001. Full use was made of the nearby Aniene river, a tributary of the Tiber, to provide the water for all the water features in the extensive gardens. By using canals and many metres of underground pipes water is brought from the river for the hundreds of water features.

There is one pathway called the 'Hundred Fountains' which has nearly three hundred spouts emitting water out of the wall beside it. It runs between the Oval Fountain and the Fountain of Rometto, which are just two of the fifty or so much larger fountains in the gardens. Especially notable is the Fontana dell'Organo, or Organ Fountain, where the water is used to produce music.

The Tivoli Gardens are an amusement park in the centre of the city of Copenhagen. When they were first established in the middle of the nineteenth century, they were known as Tivoli and Vauxhall, referring to the Jardins de Tivoli in Paris and the Vauxhall gardens in London. Both were pleasure gardens, although the former closed shortly before the Danish pleasure gardens opened, and the latter shut soon afterwards.

The gardens are open for Hallowe'en and Christmas as well as the summer season. There are indoor and outdoor performance areas, and an assortment of places to obtain both food and drink, in addition to the many different rides for which the gardens have always been famous. Notable visitors to the Tivoli Gardens include both Hans Christian Anderson and Walt Disney, who is said to have been inspired by them to create Disney World.

Zahrada na Valech means the gardens on the ramparts. They are, perhaps, the most unusual part of the many gardens around Prague Castle in Czechia. The castle was first established in the ninth century. During the course of the following thousand years it suffered damage, and was rebuilt on many occasions. Many of the gardens were laid out during the sixteenth century, when the moat was no longer needed for defence, and the space could be re-purposed.

After the First World War, the first president of Czechoslovakia asked Joze Plečnik (1872-1957), a Slovenian architect to take charge of the renovations of the castle and grounds. As part of those works, he created a new garden on the south side of the castle, known as the garden on the ramparts. It has a walkway along the top, which has fine views across the city towards the river, and also includes an obelisk and a fountain. There are sets of steps down to the bottom of the site, one of which is known as the Bull Staircase, because of its decoration.

The botanical garden at the University of Uppsala, in Sweden, is the oldest in the country. It was originally laid out and planted, in 1655, by the Professor of Medicine, Olof Rudbeck. Unfortunately it was badly damaged by a fire in the city in 1702, and became neglected due to a lack of funds. Carl Linnaeus (1707-1778) was a Swedish physician and biologist. He was appointed as Professor of Medicine in 1741, and became responsible for the garden. He organised the planting to reflect the system of plant classification which he devised, and for which he is best remembered. He also lived in a house which had been built at one end of the garden.

By the end of the eighteenth century, the garden was becoming too small for the number of plants wanted in the university's botanical collection. King Gustav III donated the gardens of Uppsala Castle to the university in 1787, and the original garden closed in 1802. A society was founded to restore the garden, which was re-opened in 1923, having been replanted according to Linnaeus' original plans. His former residence was turned into a museum about his life and work, and opened in 1937.

Unlike many of the other gardens in this quiz, Stavros Niarchos Park in Athens is a very recently created garden. It has been planted on the site of one of the carparks for the Olympic Games which were held in Athens in 2004. Most of the plants are described as xeriscape, and thus suited to the conditions in Greece. Thought has been given to the necessary water for them, and seawater is collected and desalinated, as well as using rainwater.

The many different trees, shrubs and other plants provide a home for a wide variety of birds and animals. There are extensive accessible paths and lawns for picnics, including a labyrinth. A children's playground has been installed. Nearby there are water jets for playing with, and a musical garden. The park also has sports facilities, and there are outdoor performance spaces which host concerts, film screenings and theatrical productions.