The Botanical Garden Finca La Concepcion, with its English landscape style, has over 150 years of history and more than 50,000 plants. Its origin is linked to Jorge Loring and Amalia Heredia, a couple of the high bourgeoisie of the nineteenth century who, during their honeymoon, travelled to different countries in Europe, acquiring a large number of plant species.
A romantic story
For many years it was thought that Manuel Agustin Heredia, the forerunner of the Furnaces of Marbella and promoter of the Industrial Revolution in Spain, gave his daughter Amalia this garden as a gift when she married Jorge Loring in 1850. The reality is that La Concepcion was a creation of the couple themselves, that little by little acquired and added more and more land.
The most historic part of the Garden of La Concepcion was created with plants brought from gardens, palaces and European farms that the Loring-Heredia visited during their long honeymoon trip. Nothing more and nothing less than six months! The garden had influences of the beautiful French, Italian, English and Swiss gardens that they knew and also nourished of the contributions that through his contacts gathered Jacint Chamousset, the French gardener hired for its beautification.
For years, the Lorings imported more and more plants, especially from Europe. The collection of palm trees, cycas, bamboos, araucarias and ficus along with the wealth of fountains, waterfalls and bridges made the place declared a historic-artistic garden in 1943. When you visit it, you will be able to see you are in the best subtropical outdoors garden of the continent. At the moment it is considered a Property of Cultural Interest.
La Concepcion on screen
The exuberance of its different environments and the exoticism of much of its vegetation has inspired many filmmakers to shoot in the Garden of La Concepcion. In many of these films it may seem you are seeing tropical landscapes of Polynesia, India, Caribbean jungles, but in fact it is this botanical garden that is shown. Films like 'Balarrasa', 'Bambu', 'Erik the Viking', 'The Bridge of San Luis Rey Bridge', or the famous spot of Cafe de Colombia were filmed in this paradisiacal spot.
The species of the Botanical Garden of La Concepcion, a tour around the world
La Concepcion has different modern gardens displayed so that a simple walk allows a tour around the world. That is why there is an area called “Around the World in Eighty Trees”, which has the most characteristic flora of the 5 continents and has a total of 80 different species.
Nor can you overlook the “Mapamundi route of palm trees”, a compilation of 75 species of palms from all continents; something very remarkable given the difficulty of this plant to grow outdoors in Europe.
Schedules of the Botanical Garden La Concepcion
You can visit the Botanical Garden La Concepcion from the 1st of October to the 31st of March, from 9.30 am to 4.30 pm (free admission on Sundays) and from the 1st of April to the 30th of September from 9.30 am to 7.30 pm (free admission from 3.30 pm). The garden is closed on the 25th December and the 1st of January.
