According to Kadriorg Park manager Ain Järve, the development will be divided into three sections (see image), whereby one building will be used for park maintenance staff and gardeners' work, training and utility rooms, and the second building will consist of the winter garden and storage room for ornamental and exotic plants brought in out of the cold, and should be kept open to the public.

Järve said: "For instance, we will be able to surprise people in February with a blooming Japanese cherry tree."

The third building will consist of a greenhouse where additional exotic plants will be kept, particularly plants introduced to the park's flower beds during the 1930s, "for instance irises and santolinas," Järve went on.

The development should be completed by December 2023, at a total cost of €7.5 million.

Kadriorg Park is heavily influenced by French park design, Järve went on.

"There are parterres, rather than flower beds, in the flower garden, while the water channels are not surrounded by pruned trees, but bosquets (small clumps of trees or shrubs – ed.)," he added.

The orangery greenhouse was erected in 1835, he added.

The development of Kadriorg Park dates back to the era of Peter the Great, who had the adjacent palace built as a summer house for his consort Catherine, later Empress of Russia (Kadriorg means "Catherine's valley" in English).

The latest addition to the park up until now had been the Japanese Garden, put in place a decade ago.

The building, also known as Kadriorg, which is the official residence of the President of Estonia, was built much later, during the period of the First Estonian Republic.

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