After visiting the Grosser Garten with its Great Parterre, grotto, and Special Gardens, my niece and I crossed Herrenhauser Strasse to visit the Berggarten (Hill Garden). First we stepped into the cactus house:
It was stunning, overwhelming, and, at times, even a little creepy!
Everything in this greenhouse was well labeled, and, if I were a cactus aficionado, I could have spent hours in here examining the hundreds of specimens. Here’s one of the few things I recognized, a Crown of Thorns, Euphorbia X lomi. I hope mine doesn’t grow this large!
From the cactus house, we walked through an airlock into the humidity and warmth of the tropical house and orchid house. I know very little about orchids, so I will just show you several pretty pictures!
Once we had seen enough of the orchids, we went outside into the Ornamental and Subtropical Courtyards. These flower-filled, colorful gardens were prettier to my eyes than the heavily formal Great Parterre:
There was even a sunken succulent (say that 10 times!) garden! A tiny parterre:
Look how the gardeners have clipped and trained these hens and chicks into miniature tree forms:
I hope you are enjoying this virtual tour of the Herrenhauser Gardens. I have one more installment in this series, so come back soon to see the fuchsia exhibit!
Cosmos and Cleome 
The courtyards are beautiful! The succulent garden there is certainly interesting–I wonder how many hours it took to prune all those hens and chicks. I don’t think I will be copying that idea, however; I can’t even keep up with deadheading my garden these days:)