Palmetum

Santa Cruz de Tenerife · Category: Leisure · Subcategory: Green spaces · Year: 1995-2007

The Palmetum of Santa Cruz de Tenerife is a 12-hectare botanical garden specialising in palms and divided into biogeographical sections. It is one of the largest urban green spaces in the Canary Islands and is situated on an artificial mountain, once known as El Lazareto, which was the old urban waste landfill of the city, closed in 1983. After extensive conditioning, it now houses the largest collection of palms in Europe.

The Palmetum project began in 1995 with the landscape design carried out under the direction of agronomists Manuel Caballero and José Timón, biologist Carlo Morici and garden designer Carlos Simón. The park includes a large system of waterfalls, streams and lakes, a palm museum with more than 1,000 ethnographic pieces, laboratories, offices, a nursery, a propagation greenhouse and a shade house, known as the Octagon, to house the most delicate species.

The collection grew significantly between 1996 and 1999, when cooperation with other botanical gardens was intense. However, at the end of 1999, the still incomplete project was halted due to lack of funds. Between 2000 and 2007 the gardens experienced ups and downs, with periods of neglect and sometimes abandonment, which caused a reduction in species under cultivation. Finally, in 2007, some fresh impetus arrived in the form of renewed interest and financial availability, allowing work to resume. The Government of the Canary Islands financed the most important works and the south-facing slopes, which had never been planted, were landscaped. Since then, the City Council has taken care of good maintenance, with excellent recovery and improvement of the gardens.

Currently, the botanical garden maintains more than 1,600 species, and a total of approximately 3,600 specimens. It has about 470 valuable and uncommon palm species forming a world reference collection. Among the cultivated species, 72 are endangered and included on the IUCN Red List. The collection focuses on island palms and the most important biogeographical section is dedicated to the Caribbean, covering an area of more than 40,000 m² and is one of the most complete in the world.

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