The Lost Gardens are located northeast of Mustasaari Church, between the detached house area along Postikatu, Adelcrantzinkuja and Itäinen Aitakatu. As the name suggests, the gardens that once stood here before the fire of Vaasa have disappeared from the site. Today the area is mostly meadow and meadow-based forest. Access in the area is challenging because there is no clear network of paths and in spring the lowest part is largely submerged by floodwater.
In the northern part of the meadow area, in the early 19th century, there was Seurahuone Park and a well house; in the middle was the poorhouse’s vegetable garden; and at the southern end were the gardens of district magistrate Roschier and the president of the Court of Appeal. The gardens today are only a memory, but the area’s stone walls and fences, a round pond that has become silted and marshy, and a few escaped garden plants indicate where the gardens once lay.
The Lost Gardens are easiest to walk through in spring before the vegetation has grown too tall. The stone fences are also most easily visible then. In summer you can see some of the cultural plants that have survived in the area, such as evening primroses, Jacob’s ladder, roses and willow spirea. In autumn they are best distinguished from their surroundings by two old linden trees growing at the edge of the Mustasaari Church car park, which likely once marked the entrance to the Court of Appeal president’s garden.