Regel was the son of the teacher and garrison-preacher Ludwig A. Regel. Already as a child he liked growing fruits and learnt to prune apple trees from a gardener of his grandfather Döring and cultivated the garden of his parents. He visited the
Gymnasium at Gotha but left without
Abitur. Regel earned a degree from the
University of Bonn. At 15, Regel began his career as an apprentice at the
Royal Garden Limonaia in Gotha in 1830-1833 and in spring 1833 went as an adjunct to the
botanical garden in
Göttingen. He then worked in the botanical gardens in
Bonn (1837-1839) and Berlin (1839-1842). In 1842 he moved to Switzerland to become the head of the
Old Botanical Garden, Zürich. During this time he also worked as a lecturer of science. In 1852 he founded the magazine
Gartenflora (Garden Flora), in which he described many new species. In 1855 Regel moved to St. Petersburg, Russia, where he initially worked as a research director and later as senior botanist at the
Imperial Botanical Garden. From 1875 until his death he served as the director of the Imperial Botanical Garden. While there, he oversaw the creation of some of the gardens (e.g. the Admiralty garden) and the facility laboratory. He was a founder and vice-president of the
Russian Gardening Society and a number of
academic journals. In 1875, he became an associate member of the
St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences. Volume 111 of ''
Curtis's Botanical Magazine'' is dedicated to him. Regel died in St. Petersburg in 1892 and was buried at the
Smolenskoe Lutheran Cemetery. ==Plants named by him==