Lebanon Ceders in the Castle Gardens

The Lebanon cedars came to Homburg in 1818 as a gift from the Duke of Cambridge to his sister, Elizabeth, wife of Landgrave Frederick VI Joseph. A total of 16 cedar saplings were imported from the Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew; sadly, only two survived, the rest froze. The then court gardener first kept the two small trees in the orangery; in 1822, they were planted in front of the King's Wing, where they continue to stand regally to this day. Today, the larger cedar has an impressive trunk circumference of 6.40 metres. It is some 35 metres wide at its broadest point and over 20 metres tall. With these dimensions, the tree not only has the largest circumference of any cedar in Germany, it is also the oldest, as was discovered in 2020.