When Charles VIII of France marched into Italy bent on conquest he was, like so many, overwhelmed instead by Italian culture, and art, and especially the beautiful Italian buildings, and the cultivated oranges that embellished their grounds. At his chateau at Amboise, Charles erected the very first large "greenhouse" intended specifically for oranges - an orangerie. (The very earliest, smaller structure "orangerie" of types seems to date from 1336). Charles's queen followed suit at her own chateau at Blois. Soon a royal competition of sorts started, thereafter few royal and noble palaces were complete without their own ever increasingly and ever splendid orangeries, culminating in the most magnificent one designed by Mansart for Louis XIV at Versailles in 1764 - Millet

How would you like to grow your oranger in these orangeries?

Versailles Orangerie
http://www.offrench.net/photos/gallery-8_photo-651.php

Shonbrunn Orangerie, Vienna
http://www.lavera.at/eng/orangery.htm

Seems like a good place to mention again my webpage about the Versailles Orangerie!
http://www.homecitrusgrowers.co.uk/citrusplaces/versailles.html

Thanks Mike, a great page. When I visited Versailles, it was a very HOT DRY day. Out side the entrance were a LOT of foreign (non French) peddlers selling all sorts of stuff. Versailles, itself is well worth the visit, and I recommend it to everyone. - Millet

Additionally, if a member is visiting London, there is an Orangerie, which is now a restaurant (if I remember correctly) located in the Kew Gardens. I visited Kew, when I went to London to see the Chelsea Flower Show. - Millet

Kew Gardens Orangery picture here:-
(see Laaz corrected link in next post)

Orangeries have long since been a symbol of wealth among certain classes. They were popular among those who lived in period homes and fashionable country houses.


Orangeries
Orangery

Mike; "Page not found".

http://www.homecitrusgrowers.co.uk/citrusplaces/kewgardens.html

Laaz - Thanks for correcting that link. An old hosting site which I no longer use.
Sylvain - You are making me work hard! I was half way through changing the index page of HomeCitrusGrowers to my new trial editing program, when you made me look again at the Kew Gardens page. It had several out-of-date links and tiny photos that would look bad on your large, high definition screen. So I've now re-written it with the new editing software, using bigger pictures and checked all the links. It should be a bit improved, although I really need to go to Kew again to take some more photos.
http://www.homecitrusgrowers.co.uk/citrusplaces/kewgardens.html
Mike/Citrange

That new page looks great Mike!

What happened to the photos here ?

http://www.homecitrusgrowers.co.uk/australiannativecitrus/keweconomicbotany.html

As I tried to explain on the page, I wasn't supposed to 'publish' any photos I took in the Kew Economic Botany archives. So I converted them into computer generated drawings.
However, as this is a private message board, and the photos are now quite old, here is one of them

These are preserved microcitrus fruits now about 110years old.
You may notice there is confusion on the labels between australis and australasica.

Mike,
> Sylvain - You are making me work hard!
That's good for you.

The Kewgarden page is nearly perfect. Nearly because if I play with the font size I still can have overlapping. But its hard to obtain.

Are you sure that all the hights and widths are in % of the page? Not in pixels.

Well, in Europe many orangeries have survived, but only less hold today citrus plants.
In Germany the orangerie and garden of Karlsruhe still keeps a few plants, the original collection was destroyed during WW2.

At the garden of the monastery of Seligenstadt keeps on of the oldest orangeries build in type of a greenhouse with solar catch.

At Darmstadt the old orangerie is today used for concerts and other events, but the plants have moved to a modern conservatory and still today a large collection is hosted - some plants are older than 80 years...
Here an old crane tower for repotting large palms and citrus trees is still present

At Bad Homburg in the orangerie today typical orangerie plants are hosted during the winter and presented in the castle garden in Summer.

Schwetzingen is a orangerie castle, the castle wings once hold one of the largest orangeries in the west. The plants moved into the new orangerie and orange parterre, but during WW2 the historic collection died, because the plants were set outdoors during the winter, because the allied troops used the light flooded orangerie rooms as command rooms.
It contains a typical orangerie wind and a greenhouse style annex.

At the bavarian castles of Ludwig the second we can find historical orangeries, like at his parental castle Hohenschwangau a nice, in the ground build orangerie, the original orangerie is today used as chapel, but is mounted direct into the rock on which the castle settles.

The castle of Herrenchiemsee is a copy of Versailles, and has a typical plant parterre, but the orangerie wing of the castle was never finished.

The residence at munich has a huge orangerie, unused today.
The castle of Nymphenburg in northern munich still hold some citrus plants, but the old orangeries have been rebuild as the garden was rebuild in the beginning to the 19. century.

There are many more and each of this houses has it's own unique story.

We should never forget, that within the end of the 17. century huge glass windows were uncommon, because float glass was not invented and after in the beginning of the 18. century the first glass houses appeared.
Documentations can be found in Johann Chr. Volkamers books about citrus and orangerie plants - named "Nuernbergische Hesperides" - the books show a great information on historical garden layout and garden architecture.
Volkamer lived in Nuernberg, were he collected citrus trees for the wealthy honored citizens - he was a gardner. We get with his books also a great view to how Nuernbergs Pomeranzen Gardens might have looked like, and many of them had been restored in the last years. Pomeranze is the german word for sour orange, Citrus aurantium

He also describes the old wooden pomeranzen houses, and this wooden winter conservatory, which was comparable to the Limonaia lemon gardens at Lake Garda. On wooden posts or stone columns the walls were attached and atop the roof was established, insulated with straw and loam.
Later he'd showed the first orangerie houses with large float glass windows in his second book, so we can find here the way from the old wooden construction to the typical orangerie.

Dear Citroholics,

I can add some information/fotos to some Orangeries located in Germany and still in use for Citrus and other exotic plants.

follow the link: http://www.zitrusgarten.net/homepage/Orangerien/orangerien.htm
These are older, non updated pages but may be of some interes for those who plan a tour around orangeries.

Don´t mind the german words, just enjoy the fotos.

kind regards