Ogród Europy – Valtice-Lednice

Gardening art is an important element of the national culture of various countries but it is also a common European heritage. A good example supporting that thesis is the landscape complex Valtice-Lednice, situated in Moravia in the Czech Republic. This 150 ha area on the border of Czech, Slovakia and Austria was for almost 700 years shaped by the Liechtenstein family. The power of the family progressed throughout years and found its emanation in a form of a bombast palace in Valtanice which became the main seat of the family in 1608. Lednice, situated 7 km farther, were a summer estate of princes. Experiments on gardening art were run in the park situated there. At the beginning of the 17th century Charles the 1st starts, and his son continues the rebuilding of the palace in Lednica and development of a garden in a baroque style. Supervised by European experts in the field of architecture and gardening art, terraces richly decorated with flower beds, sculptures and fountains. At the end of the 17th century, Fisher von Erlach builds a manieristic building of a Riding School in the surroundings of a baroque palace. In the 18th century, the park was reorganized in a French baroque style, according to rules by Le Nôtre, reducing decorative flower beds and opening visual axes to the surrounding landscape. Also in that period were created the first elements (i.e. monumental lane) which connect Valtice and Lednice in one vast area of a landscape park. The important changes in Lednice occur in 1805-1811, when prince John Joseph he 1st, with a great amount of funds and work, creates an enormous pond with islands in the park and the river Dyje runs along a different bed. In that period the whole area between Lednice and Valtice is connected into one complex of a landscape park, created a so-called decorative farm, where usable and decorative functions of the garden were skillfully connected. In the middle of the 19th century the palace in Lednice is rebuilt in the English neo-gothic style. A orangery of cast iron was also created where a rich collection of tropical plants was placed. For creating an appropriate surrounding, the next owner of the estate ? John Joseph the 2nd- buys, and next demolishes a part of a village to the south of the palace, where a baroque garden is created according to the design of Florentine, Vicenzo Michelli. The garden is divided by two main axes, vertical to each other. Among flower beds and bosquets, two collections of plants were founded: rosary on the east side and pintum ( a collection of pine trees), and arboretum and perrenial garden on the west. A precursory method to replant trees of considerable sizes was used to prevent the differences in age and height of the trees in comparison to the rest of the park. Valtice-Lednice complex can be divided in two parts: sentimental part-garden set in Lednice and the remaining area, shaped into a romantic landscape park. The whole is preserved in good shape and in 1996 both places together with their surroundings were included on the List of World Heritage of Culture and Nature UNESCO.