Vērmanes Garden is the oldest public garden in the city of Riga

Riga

Riga is the capital and largest city of Latvia. With 702,891 inhabitants Riga is the largest city of the Baltic states, one of the largest cities in Northern Europe and home to more than one third of Latvia's population. The city is an important seaport and a major industrial, commercial,...

, Latvia

Latvia

Latvia , officially the Republic of Latvia , is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by Estonia , to the south by Lithuania , to the east by the Russian Federation , to the southeast by Belarus and shares maritime borders to the west with Sweden...

, and currently comprises an area of approximately 5 hectares (12.4 acre). The current name is a Latvian transliteration

Transliteration

Transliteration is a subset of the science of hermeneutics. It is a form of translation, and is the practice of converting a text from one script into another...

 of the gardens original German

German language

German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....

 name.

Wöhrmann Park

Vērmanes Garden was originally created as Wöhrmann Park in 1814 on behalf of the Governor General of Governorate of Livonia Philip Paulucci

Philip Osipovich Paulucci

Philip Osipovich Paulucci was a marquis and a Russian adjutant general.-Life:He first served in the French army in 1807 before moving to the Russian service with the rank of colonel...

, just a couple of years after the outskirts of Riga was burned down during the French invasion of Russia

French invasion of Russia

The French invasion of Russia of 1812 was a turning point in the Napoleonic Wars. It reduced the French and allied invasion forces to a tiny fraction of their initial strength and triggered a major shift in European politics as it dramatically weakened French hegemony in Europe...

 prior to the Siege of Riga . Financing and land for the park was sponsored by the Prussia

Prussia

Prussia was a German kingdom and historic state originating out of the Duchy of Prussia and the Margraviate of Brandenburg. For centuries, the House of Hohenzollern ruled Prussia, successfully expanding its size by way of an unusually well-organized and effective army. Prussia shaped the history...

n Consul General

Consul (representative)

The political title Consul is used for the official representatives of the government of one state in the territory of another, normally acting to assist and protect the citizens of the consul's own country, and to facilitate trade and friendship between the peoples of the two countries...

 to Riga Johann Christoph Wöhrmann (1784–1843) and his mother Anna Gertrud Wöhrmann (née

NEE

NEE is a political protest group whose goal was to provide an alternative for voters who are unhappy with all political parties at hand in Belgium, where voting is compulsory.The NEE party was founded in 2005 in Antwerp...

 Abels, 1750–1827).
Wöhrmann Park was inaugurated

Inauguration

An inauguration is a formal ceremony to mark the beginning of a leader's term of office. An example is the ceremony in which the President of the United States officially takes the oath of office....

 with festivities on 8 June 1817 as a fenced 0.8 hectares (2 acre) park

Park

A park is a protected area, in its natural or semi-natural state, or planted, and set aside for human recreation and enjoyment, or for the protection of wildlife or natural habitats. It may consist of rocks, soil, water, flora and fauna and grass areas. Many parks are legally protected by...

 with exotic trees, a rose garden

Rose garden

A Rose garden or Rosarium is a garden or park, often open to the public, used to present and grow various types of garden roses. Designs vary tremendously and roses may be displayed alongside other plants or grouped by individual variety, colour or class in rose beds.-Origins of the rose...

 and restaurant

Restaurant

A restaurant is an establishment which prepares and serves food and drink to customers in return for money. Meals are generally served and eaten on premises, but many restaurants also offer take-out and food delivery services...

. A granite

Granite

Granite is a common and widely occurring type of intrusive, felsic, igneous rock. Granite usually has a medium- to coarse-grained texture. Occasionally some individual crystals are larger than the groundmass, in which case the texture is known as porphyritic. A granitic rock with a porphyritic...

 obelisk

Obelisk

An obelisk is a tall, four-sided, narrow tapering monument which ends in a pyramid-like shape at the top, and is said to resemble a petrified ray of the sun-disk. A pair of obelisks usually stood in front of a pylon...

 was erected 1829 in the park as a posthumous memorial

Memorial

A memorial is an object which serves as a focus for memory of something, usually a person or an event. Popular forms of memorials include landmark objects or art objects such as sculptures, statues or fountains, and even entire parks....

 to Anna Wöhrmann. The memorial was dismantled prior to World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

 and recreated 2000.

1836 the Riga Chemist and Pharmacist Society initiated a mineral water

Mineral water

Mineral water is water containing minerals or other dissolved substances that alter its taste or give it therapeutic value, generally obtained from a naturally occurring mineral spring or source. Dissolved substances in the water may include various salts and sulfur compounds...

 shop in the park restaurant. When the premises became too narrow, reconstructions were conducted according to a project by architect

Architect

An architect is a person trained in the planning, design and oversight of the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to offer or render services in connection with the design and construction of a building, or group of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the...

 Heinrich Scheel in the years from 1863 to 1864 and 1870 to 1871. 1869 the park had a sundial

Sundial

A sundial is a device that measures time by the position of the Sun. In common designs such as the horizontal sundial, the sun casts a shadow from its style onto a surface marked with lines indicating the hours of the day. The style is the time-telling edge of the gnomon, often a thin rod or a...

 and fountain

Fountain

A fountain is a piece of architecture which pours water into a basin or jets it into the air either to supply drinking water or for decorative or dramatic effect....

 installed.

Park becomes Garden

1881, the director of the Riga City Gardens and Parks Georg Kuphaldt

Georg Kuphaldt

Georg Friedrich Ferdinand Kuphaldt was an influential German landscape architect, gardener and dendrologist of the Russian Empire....

 expanded the park territory considerably by transferring areas of city squares and the front part of the bordering territory belonging to the Greek Orthodox

Greek Orthodox Church

The Greek Orthodox Church is the body of several churches within the larger communion of Eastern Orthodox Christianity sharing a common cultural tradition whose liturgy is also traditionally conducted in Koine Greek, the original language of the New Testament...

 Seminary

Seminary

A seminary, theological college, or divinity school is an institution of secondary or post-secondary education for educating students in theology, generally to prepare them for ordination as clergy or for other ministry...

. In the newly expanded garden, Kuphaldt installed flower parterre

Parterre

A parterre is a formal garden construction on a level surface consisting of planting beds, edged in stone or tightly clipped hedging, and gravel paths arranged to form a pleasing, usually symmetrical pattern. Parterres need not have any flowers at all...

s and exotic trees and bushes such as: Gleditschia triacanthos (Honey locust), Dimorphantus mandschuricus Maxim (Japanese angelica tree), Aesculus rubicunda Lois, Fagus silvatica (Copper beech), Fagus asplenifolia (Fernleaf European beech), Fagus folis atropurpureis, Acer negundo

Acer negundo

Acer negundo is a species of maple native to North America. Box Elder, Boxelder Maple, and Maple Ash are its most common names in the United States...

 (American maple), Acer negundo foliis variegatis, Robinia pseudoacacia (Black locust), Magnolia obovata

Magnolia obovata

Magnolia obovata is a species of Magnolia, native to Japan and the adjacent Kurile Islands of Russia. It grows at altitudes of sea level up to 1,800 m in mixed broadleaf forest.-Description:It is a medium-sized deciduous tree 15–30 m tall, with slate grey bark...

 (Japanese bigleaf magnolia), Magnolia yulan (Lily tree), Bignonia catalpa (Herb linn), Pterocarya caucasica (Caucasian wingnut), Prunus laurocerasus (Cherry laurel), Aucuba japonica

Aucuba japonica

Aucuba japonica, the spotted laurel, is a shrub native to woods in lowland and mountains all over Japan and China. In rich forest soils of moist valleys, dense forests, thickets, by streams and near shaded moist rocks in China. The leaves are opposite, broad lanceolate, 5-8 cm long and...

 (Spotted laurel), Buxus sempervirens

Buxus sempervirens

Buxus sempervirens is a flowering plant in the genus Buxus, native to western and southern Europe, northwest Africa, and southwest Asia, from southern England south to northern Morocco, and east through the northern Mediterranean region to Turkey. Buxus colchica of western Caucasus and B...

 (European box), Buxus arborescens (Boxwood tree), Ilex aquifolium (European holly), Ilex laurifolia, Berberis aquifolium (Oregon grape), Rhododendron catawbiense

Rhododendron catawbiense

Rhododendron catawbiense is a species of Rhododendron native to the eastern United States, growing mainly in the Appalachian Mountains from Virginia south to northern Alabama....

, Yucca flamentosa (Adam's needle yucca), Hedera helix

Hedera helix

Hedera helix is a species of ivy native to most of Europe and western Asia. It is labeled as an invasive species in a number of areas where it has been introduced.-Description:...

(Common ivy).