The baroque garden at Gottorf Palace was once considered a botanical sensation. It was laid out in terraces in 1637 by Duke Frederik III, extended by his son Duke Christian Albrecht after 1659, and impressed its visitors with an "exotic" variety of plants. The duke had about 1,200 species planted, including such exotic sorts as lemons, bitter orange and aloes. Frederick III was so proud of this, that he commissioned the Hamburg flower painter Hans Simon Holtzbecker to compile a plant book, the so-called Gottorf Codex. This book forms the basis for today's planting in the Baroque Garden. Although the garden had not been maintained for 250 years and had virtually disappeared, about 20 species of the original historic garden plants have survived to this day.
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