It is located at Universitätsstraße 150, Bochum, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, and open daily without charge.

The garden was founded in 1968 and subsequently has been continuously expanded and improved. It opened to the public in 1971, with later developments as follows: tropical house, 1976; desert house, 1988; Chinese garden, 1990; savannah houses, 2000.

The garden’s fenced, outdoors area cultivates plants organized into geobotanical regions, including forests, coasts, meadows, prairies, and marshes from the Americas, Asia, and Europe. It also contains an alpine garden and succulent garden.

Its Chinese garden was created from 1986 to 1990, and renovated in 2001, by skilled gardeners donated by the Tongji University in Shanghai as a sign of friendship. It is named Qian Yuan (Qian Garden), reflecting a memory of poet Tao Qian (365-427 AD), and laid out in the southern Chinese style. A pond covers half its area.

The garden’s greenhouses contain collections of succulent Euphorbia, other succulents, Cycadaceae, Canary Island plants, Eriocaulaceae, and alpine plants.