Lausitzer Findlingspark Nochten, Bad Muskau

The Lusatian Foundlings Park Nochten is a landscape garden of about 20 hectares southwest of Weißwasser in Upper Lusatia. It was created northeast of Nochten between 2000 and 2003 on the recultivation area of the Nochten open-cast lignite mine.

The park is a spacious, multicolored garden with only a few trees and shrubs, covering an artificially raised hilly landscape that rises strikingly above its surroundings. As a characteristic and dominating design element, about 6000 erratic blocks were brought in from the overburden of the regional mining industry, which were transported from Northern Europe to Lusatia by the glaciers of the Ice Age. A nature trail provides access to over 90 representatively selected specimens; labels and information boards provide information on the type of rock and its origin.

The petrological presentation occupies only a small part of the park. In the rest of the grounds, boulders as well as areas covered with different colored gravel, quarry stone or boulders form the basis or background for several specialized garden areas and replicas of natural biotopes. These plantings, in addition to rhododendrons, succulents and more than 500 different species of perennials, also include a collection of more than 160 species and varieties of heather and broom heather, are embedded in grassland, which is kept partly as a sheared lawn and partly as a tall flowering meadow. Several small ponds and artificial watercourses complete the park landscape. A network of paths of about 3.6 kilometers in length runs through the park, which is supplemented by side paths totaling about three kilometers in length.