Winter pleases with a snow-white blizzard, snow and unexpected guests. And in the small greenhouse of the Summer Garden, citrus trees are preparing for flowering.

Their main flowering takes place in March-April, but is hidden from the eyes of visitors behind the misted windows of the greenhouse, because it is here that from October to May the trees wait out the cold.

The average and most comfortable temperature for citrus fruits in winter is around 12 degrees Celsius. With the onset of spring, employees will gradually move the trees from the greenhouse to the open air.

Citrus fruits were brought to the Summer Garden from Italy, and rare orange trees from Het Loo, the summer palace of the Dutch royal family in Apeldoorn. They are the descendants of those orange trees that Peter I first saw when visiting his cousin’s palace.