A Garden for the Blind
in Bremen-St. Magnus

The first German Garden for the Blind was opened 22 years ago in St. Magnus, on the private initiative of Lothar and Edith Kranz. It was financed by donated funds only and built with free-of-charge labour services of Bremen firms and private individuals.
On an area of 1,600 sqm grow 600 different plants, 400 of them marked with signs (also in Braille).
The garden is laid out in a way that blind people find their way through it unaided.
Big relief plaques show the way – in Braille.
In 16 departments, plants with rough and smooth leaves, thorns and stings, cushion perennials as well as aromatic flower and fruit formations are shown. You can feel the bark of various shrubs.
Everything is for touching and ‘sniffing at ‘, on a comfortable height in raised beds, which are bordered by 60-80 cm high wooden palisades.
Of course, there are also benches to relax on.
Afterwards, you can go for coffee in the adjacent retirement homes of St. Ilsabeen or Haus Blumenkamp in the Billungstraße, some hundred metres away through the forest.
The garden lies in a 150m-distance from train station St. Magnus, which can be easily reached with the regional train to Vegesack, departing half-hourly from Bremen Central at track 5.
The way to the garden is equipped with good signage.
The Garden for the Blind is, depending on weather, open from the beginning of March to the end of October, seven days a week, from 09.00 a.m. to 06.00p.m.
The annual summer festival of the Garden of the Blind, always taking place on a Saturday afternoon in May, provides coffee and cake, music and good conversations.