Castle Nursery Greenhouses and Fuchsia Collection of Buchlovice Château

The heritage catalogue dates the building of Buchlovice Château to 1700-1738, for Jan Gerhard of Petřvald; other notices place the start of works before 1700. The original Baroque garden was later extended by the Berchtold family, who added an English-style landscape park. Between 1882 and 1910 clipped trees and shrubs were replanted on the area of the old garden, and the catalogue notes that the château nursery, with its glasshouse buildings, has survived, as has an orangery of the second half of the nineteenth century.

Fuchsias reached Buchlovice in 1970, after comparative trials with the world assortment at Průhonice. The original 350 varieties were then revised and supplemented by the collector Jiří Mráz, with the help of the château's gardener and a specialist. A plaque on the spot, visible in a Wikimedia Commons photograph, credits the château gardener Pavel Vlášek (1943-2009) with founding this collection in 1982. The collection has been open to the public in summer since 1982 according to the château's website and a 2007 article, and since 1981 according to the Czech Wikipedia and several tourist notices. It is now run by the National Heritage Institute (NPÚ), through its Kroměříž office and the Buchlovice château unit, which presents it as one of the most important and best-known in Central Europe.

The 2021 survey of historic Czech orangeries and glasshouses, carried out by the horticulture faculty of Mendel University (Lednice) for a Ministry of Culture programme, places the Buchlovice glasshouse in type 4 (at least one wall and the roof glazed) and in the "complete" category: all the main parts of the original structure are preserved or well restored, along with a good share of the details. It is described as a freestanding building with an undivided façade, integrated into the nursery and attached to a national cultural monument; the report notes the considerable share of masonry in the construction. Of 36 display glasshouses documented in its sample of 210 existing or vanished buildings, 26 survive and 6 are preserved in full: Buchlovice, Hluboká, Kopidlno, Lednice, Náměšť nad Oslavou and Světlá nad Sázavou.

The heritage catalogue also mentions, in the nursery, an original orangery of the second half of the nineteenth century and modern glasshouses in which the fuchsia collection grows, without dimensions or description.

The collection numbers about 1,200 fuchsia varieties according to the château and its dedicated website; the announcement of the 2026 exhibition puts it at 1,250, and a 2007 article already counted around 1,200 a year. According to the heritage catalogue, it is grown in modern glasshouses. Its base is the 350 varieties introduced in 1970, since expanded.

The exhibition is a sales exhibition: visitors can buy the variety they like best under expert guidance, and the nursery also offers other plants typical of a castle park. According to a 2007 article, after touring the château and park one can sit in the shade of the colourful flowers. Outside the nursery, the park has more than 400 species and cultivars of woody plants, including a rhododendron collection, according to the heritage catalogue.

The nursery opens only on the park or château ticket, and access is solely through the park: the fuchsia sales exhibition runs from late May to late September (30 May to 28 September in 2026), and the park ticket includes it.

The visit combines with the Baroque château and its garden, whose rarity lies in the preservation of Italian Baroque garden elements, and with a walk in the landscape park of almost 19 ha, rich in statues and in exotic and rare trees. Allow about an hour for the nursery and its fuchsias.