-
Count Caspar Maria Sternberg (1761–1838), a famous naturalist and founder if the National Museum, was building the botanical garden at his chateau in Březina from 1808 until his death in 1838. Several hundreds of native and non-native trees, shrubs and plants, partly grown in heated greenhouses, were part of the garden. Its splendour can still be sensed today, when you are on the site.
In 1808 the Březina Chateau and the surrounding garden and park became the main place of residence for Count Sternberg in Bohemia. Caspar Sternberg took over the estate upon the death of his brother Joachim who was also an enthusiastic naturalist. Caspar Sternberg was greatly interested in botany already during his stay in Regensburg, but his botanical garden there was destroyed by Napoleonic troops. This may be the reason why Count Sternberg started to landscape the grounds around the chateau shortly after his arrival to Bohemia and why he established a botanical garden of immense value in Březina. He planted many non-native trees and shrubs (many of them unfortunately froze during the severe frosts of 1929) and gradually several hundred plants grow in the garden. Some of them were plants salvaged from the Regensburg garden, for example forty-three varieties of saxifrages. Sternberg carried out many botanical experiments in the garden, most of them related to taxonomy. At the time of the forming of the garden, Caspar Sternberg was in close contact with the Botanical Institute of the famous Canal Garden in Prague but also with many important European botanists. Many researchers visited Sternberg repeatedly in Březina.
The park around Březina Chateau is open to the public today. It is possible to walk through the entire complex of the vanished Sternberg`s famous garden and see its last remains, which include not only ancient beeches and other trees, shrubs and plants, but also chapels or ruins of a castle.
- References
Cejp, K.: Kašpar Sternberg a jeho Březina. In: Krása našeho domova 30/1938, s. 69–72.
Majer, J.: Kašpar Šternberk. Praha 1997, s. 57–77.
- LeO
- Show in map
