In the past, it seems, that would have been the description of a typical German summer.

In these dry, hot weeks, on the other hand, the climatic statement "rainy and cool moderate" sounds downright promising.

So let's go to the Subantarktishaus, which opened 30 years ago in the Palmengarten.

Behind the reflective glass of the pavilion, which is supposed to keep out the red and infrared rays of the sun, it's less warm than in front of the door.

But a spray ensures that the air is humid and therefore still sweaty.

Bernhard Biener

Editor in the Rhein-Main-Zeitung

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Palmengarten director Katja Heubach calls the subantarctic house a "pearl".

Because the plants growing there from Patagonia at the southern end of South America and New Zealand would not be presented anywhere else in Germany in such a show house.

"It's the only one of its kind in this country." The ferns, grasses and perennials are used to adverse conditions.

"We normally keep the temperature six to eight degrees below the outside temperature," explains Heubach.

This is complex because it requires a cooling system consisting of several technical components.

After 30 years of operation, maintenance is expensive, and unlike in the modernized Tropicarium, the windows here have to be opened and closed by hand when it cools down outside at night.

Which brings the director to the glass house itself, whose history is almost as interesting as the plants inside.

It doesn't just begin with the opening 30 years ago, which is now the occasion for a small anniversary program.

The 30 meter long and eight meter wide construction was built in Bad Kissingen in 1904 as a palm house.

When the spa town in Lower Franconia gave up construction, Heubach's predecessor at the time, Gustav Schoser, acquired it in the 1980s.

"A botanical relic from prehistoric times"

However, the idea of ​​erecting the house for the 1989 Federal Horticultural Show in the Senckenberg complex and showing fossilized tertiary flora together with the Natural History Museum could not be realised.

The construction of the subway dragged on.

Schoser therefore decided to use the greenhouse for plants from a relatively unknown climate region.

"It is a fundamental decision to drive the technical effort for it," says the current Palmengarten director.

"It's about protecting and preserving diversity in the face of climatic changes."

In the sub-Antarctic house, the two regions from which the plants originate are distributed on the two sides of the glass house.

One is dedicated to New Zealand plants.

There, for example, the meter-high tree fern can be found.

"A botanical relic from prehistoric times," says Heubach.

The evergreen leaves of the Astelia are reminiscent of an office plant, albeit much larger.

The New Zealand flax grows up to three meters long.

The Rimu resin yew enriches every jungle with its fringe-like hanging needles.

On the other hand, in Patagonia, species such as hydrangea and scarlet fuchsia are now common in local gardens.

Looking at the explanation boards stimulates the imagination.

New Zealand flax, for example, was brought by father and son Forster on a James Cook ship, and winter bark, native to the rainforests of Chile and Argentina, takes its name not from the season but from a 16th-century captain who sailed with Sir Francis Drake circumnavigated Cape Horn.

Because conditions on the other side of the world are upside down, the best time to visit the subantarctic house is winter, when the plants are in bloom and fragrant.

For the 30th birthday, the Palmengarten invites you to guided tours of the glass house in August.

On Saturday between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m., on Tuesday 16 August from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. and on Wednesday 17 August from 2 p.m.