One of Kyrgyzstan's oldest green spaces is in the middle of a serious reboot. The Enver Gareev Botanical Garden in Bishkek, run by the National Academy of Sciences, plans to plant roughly 5,000 trees by the end of May 2027. The layout and planting scheme are already drawn up and contractors have begun work, according to the garden's director, Nurlan Albanov.
The new planting leans heavily on species suited to Kyrgyzstan's sharply continental climate — hot summers, freezing winters — and the institute says it will source stock from local nurseries rather than importing plants that might struggle.
There's a controversial back story. As part of the reconstruction, crews have been tearing out thickets of red dogwood, an aggressive invasive shrub that had spread across large parts of the garden. Albanov defends the clearing work, explaining that the dogwood had turned whole sections into near-impenetrable scrub, crowding out other plants and starving them of nutrients until neighbouring trees dried out and died. Locals, he says, have mistaken the removal for mass felling — his point being that the clearing is what makes room for the 5,000 new trees.
For travellers, this is worth noting because Bishkek is increasingly used as a base for trekking in the nearby Tian Shan, and the botanical garden is one of the city's quietest escapes — a big, leafy space where you can walk for hours without feeling like you're in a capital city. By the time the planting wraps up in 2027, visitors should get a more open, varied garden instead of dense dogwood scrub: better paths, better sightlines and a wider range of trees and shrubs that actually reflect the region's flora.
If you're passing through Bishkek in the next couple of years, the garden is still well worth an afternoon — just expect some areas to be a work in progress. Pair it with Oak Park and the Philharmonic gardens downtown, or use the city as a springboard to Ala-Archa National Park, less than an hour away.
