It was during a summer trip with the SAJA in the High
Alps, two years ago, that my friends mentioned for the first time, the
possibility to organize a trip to the Czech and Slovak Republics.
“Look, you’ve Czech origins, you speak the
language, and we stumble on Czech rock gardeners everywhere. What about
doing something at last?”
Of course, I was flabbergasted. 'Doing
something' was for other people! Then I started thinking
about it. After all, I was a member of the KSP... that’s the Prague
Rock Garden club... I did know Vojtech Holubec... perhaps he would help
?
Help me he did, immediately. He sent me to a travel
agency. (By the
way, I’ve never had such a friendly, perfect service. “O.K. Bus Prague”
is warmly recommended !) He helped with
choosing a date – we’d go to the High Tatras, to see
Daphne
arbuscula in bloom. He found
a guide to come with us – Jaromir Dvorak, his cousin. He suggested other
visits, namely the Dendrologic Gardens near Prague and the Brno Arboretum,
where alpines are grown in incredible locations, to say the least. But,
most importantly, he recommended me to other members of the club, whose
gardens and/or nurseries would be of great interest.
The five gardens we visited are the subject of this article.
We were back from the Tatras, still full of great
scenery, when Jan Bürgel, the well-known Saxifraga finder and hybridizer,
came to our hotel to be our guide. He doesn’t maintain a rock garden himself
; he explained that he considered it as an ersatz, a poor substitute for
a natural setting, and that his only interest was growing the saxis in
pots. It sounds a little paradoxical, but then Jan is a very special person.
So, guided by an enemy of artificial rockeries ,
we set forth to visit the first of these gardens, belonging to Mr. and
Mrs. Karel Tlatla. It was drizzling when we arrived at a small village
near Kostelec nad Cernymi Lesy (such a romantic name, too : Church upon
Black Woods), about 50 km east of Prague. There, on the great gate of a
wonderfully restored old farm, was a small wooden plaque that said it all:
Alpine Rockery – An Important Element of a Natural Landscape.
The gate opened, the smiling owners invited us in,
and we had trouble believing our eyes.
On a gently rising slope, backed by a perfect lawn and a collection of
medium-sized conifers, was a rock garden that took our breath away. It
contained cushion plants, miniature conifers, a large collection of
small rhododendrons around several little natural-looking ponds, and other
treasures, everything perfectly maintained. 
There were large clumps and cushions ofAsperula
nitida, Arabis androsacea,
Lepidum nanum, Paronychia
kapela, Jeffersonia dubia....
Off to one side, we admired a stunning clump of
Lilium
martagon ssp. cattaniae, covered with dark red flowers and,
in a trough, several mounds of Physoplexis
comosa. Not a weed to be seen anywhere – the work of the
lady of the house, to be sure.
Of course, everybody ploughed in, and I was hard put to translate all the
questions.  Mr.
Tlatla isn’t a nurseryman, his rock garden exists only for his pleasure,
and we were astonished to learn that he brought in every single rock all
by himself, about 25 years ago. That, we found, was the same for all the
other gardens we visited. Of course, the nitpicky specialist could say
that there were no special treasures or rare plants... until we came upon
this little bush with a miniature crevice garden under it, chock full of
Jankaea
heldreichii. “Yes, its’here all the time, unprotected, and
yes, it seeds itself around. I saw them growing exactly like this on Mount
Olympus. D’you think Zeus puts glass over them in winter ?” said Mr. Tlatla.
Needless to say, there were some (including myself) green with envy.
We thanked our hosts after more than two hours of
happy roaming, and left, practically sure that this couldn’t be bettered.
Well, we were wrong. First, we made a stop at the
Prague Rock Garden Club display garden, where Jan had plenty of little
pots full of his Saxifraga hybrids ready for us to purchase. Unfortunately,
the Club cannot maintain this garden fully planted all the time ; this
day, it was rented out to a Pelargonium grower who was selling his plants
there. I have seen the place during the Early Spring Show/sale, and it
sure was different then. Only the crevice gardens remained as they were
– permanent features, one of which was made recently by Zdenek Zvolanek.
Hands full of little treasures, we boarded the bus
again to visit Milan Halada’s place, just in the southern outskirts of
Prague. Completely different --- to say the least !
 His
house and rock garden are located in a former limestone quarry, circled
by cliffs on three sides, and about 5 degrees Celsius warmer than the surrounding
countryside. No wonder he specializes in Turkish alpines !
He, for one, has no problem with finding building material.... his
crevice rockeries are exemplary, and he has alpines planted directly in
the cliffs, too. He has no wife (who’d weed, as usual) and not much time,
but when he retires, his garden will be something to behold... it is so
already.
Again, plenty of reasons to be envious ! From his several trips to Turkey,
often with Josef Jurasek, he brought some choice items of course, but by
no means are Turkish alpines the sole inhabitants of his garden. There
were miniature shrubs galore – a dwarf Fagus
sylvatica ‘Roanni’ (???), Picea
glauca ‘Laurin’, Genista involucrataand
G. capitata.... Among others,
we could admire
Arenaria pseudacantholimon,
Moltkia
petraea hanging over a huge boulder, Asperula
daphneola in a crevice, Onosma
taurica, big cushions of Gypsophila
petraea in full bloom, Centaurea
chrysantha, a collection of 25 different Acantholimons including
A. dianthifolium, bracteatum,
ulicinum, kotschyanum
– you name it - , Lamium armenum ssp. sintenisii,
Campanula troegerae and, hanging
from a cliff, a newly discovered one :
C. seraglio, covered with huge
clear pink bells on stems only about 10 cm long. Our host, always smiling,
answered our innumerable questions with admirable patience.
Of course, we were admitted to his small nursery,
full of incredible little treasures at incredibly low prices – some of
our members regretted having come by plane instead of their cars....
Unfortunately, most members of our group were leaving
the very next day ; everything has an end to it, even SAJA trips to enjoyable
places. So, a much smaller committee of lucky “Sajistes” went on to the
third garden on our list. This one was a “special” : its owner, Ota Vlasak,
co-authored , with Vojtech Holubec, a little jewel of a handbook called
“Rock Gardens and Their Construction”, to our great regret only available
in Czech. Needless to say that we took the road toward a northern suburb
of Prague filled with happy anticipation. And we weren’t disappointed !
Ota Vlasak’s garden is large,
arranged around a modern house and a swimming pool. The rockery only takes
up a small part of it. But what a rockery ! Situated on a south-eastern
slope, with a large lawn and the swimming pool in front of it, the nursery
behind, it looks simply as if it has always been there. As if this place
couldn’t be anything else. Every single boulder, every little (newt-inhabited)
pool, every miniature conifer or cushion plant looks perfectly at home.
This is not a crevice garden ; this is a masterpiece of natural building,
in spite of the fact that there isn’t a stone that Ota didn’t haul from
more than a hundred kilometres away, in the trunk of his car. We were speechless,
admirative. Well, not for long. Those that know me easily imagine that
I started asking questions as soon as I was breathing again.
Ota built his rock garden about thirty years ago,
with tufa and sandstone. The original soil wasn’t amended much, only plenty
of gravel and some sand were worked in. The Central European climate around
Prague isn’t exactly the panacea for alpines, but we were lost in admiration
seeing the huge, quarter-of-a-century old cushions of Arenaria
tetraquetra, Campanula rupicola,
Degenia velebitica, Phlox
bryoïdes, Collomia debilis,
Convolvulus compactus,
Potentilla brevifolia, Acantholimon
spritzianum, A. dianthifolium,
A. venustum, Alyssum
caespitosum, both Draba bryoïdes
and D. mollissima outside,
protected only by a large boulder ;
Silene
falcata, Asperula abchasica,
Veronica minuta.... Ota is indeed
an admirable gardener. His nursery, partly in the open, partly protected,
is a very eclectic one. Everything is perfectly organized, labelled, from
Androsace to Zauschneria. Again, we left with our arms full ; let’s
hope that we’ll know how to take care of our purchases.
The next two gardens, we knew, were going to be different.
Both belong to this special kind of people – the “Saxifraga Nut”. Jan was
indeed feeling at home there, and as it happened, I was often at a loss
to understand the very technical discussion......
Jiri Novak, whose garden is very small, lives near
Pardubice,  about
100 km east of Prague. There’s only a tiny rockery, an even tinier lawn,
and the alpine houses. But what a rockery, what a lawn ! At first, I thought
it was an artificial carpeting. Not a single blade longer than the rest,
not a single weed to rest an eye on... An “English Lawn” if I ever saw
one. In the rockery, backed by a screen from the neighbour’s plot and arranged
somewhat in a Japanese style, we noted Salix
x boydii, a magnificent clump of
Cypripedium
reginae, Daphne petraea,
Callianthemum alavaticum, Asperula
arcadiensis and, of course, the stalwart of all the gardens
we saw – small conifers. At this place I’d like to say that every spring,
the Czech gardeners pinch off the new growth, so the Pinus and Abies and
other Chamaecyparissus stay small and neat and compact. Definitely an idea
to copy ! Not to mention the grafted “Witches’ Brooms”, another Czech folly.
But back to Jiri’s garden. The Saxi specialist among
us was in admiration. That wasn’t a nursery, that was a laboratory.  Scrupulously
clean, scrupulously labelled, row upon row of perfect little pots with
perfect little Saxi hybrids in them. Jiri is the happy owner of a collection
of about 600 Saxifragas ; if you buy something from him, you know it’s
a perfectly grown, healthy plant. As we sat around a cup of tea, he told
us about his passion. Every day he comes to his garden (he lives in a town
flat, some distance from there) to cover, uncover, water, propagate....
He told us about his working with Karel Lang, whose garden was the next
(and last) we were going to visit. “He is a perfectionist. Most of the
hybridizers obtain something new one year, and the next it’s already on
the sales benches, multiplied as fast as possible, without making sure
the new hybrid is perfectly fixed. Not so Lang... he takes three years
– three full years – before releasing a novelty. It so happens that some
of them get stolen – it’s a shame !” We thanked our host, promised to say
hello to his French friend, Saxi specialist (what else?) Philippe Péchoux,
and left, full of curiosity, for our last stop, Karel Lang’s garden in
a small village south-east of Prague, not far fom the famous medieval castle
of Karlstejn.
First, even with Jan’s guidance, we got lost. Or,
perhaps, because of it ? We arrived, at last, about an hour late. Karel
didn’t mind too much, and rapidly, we were immersed in Saxifragas. While
my companions headed straight for the alpine houses and propagating benches,
I stopped for a moment to admire the perfect little rockery that guarded
the acces to the garden proper. Again, there were those ubiquitous small
conifers, irreproachably groomed... again, the years-old cushions graced
it.
As in Jiri Novak’s garden, the rocks were all tufa,
covered with Karel Lang’s favourite genus. Saxis. Saxis everywhere. The
garden, small already, was almost entirely given over to them, their maintenance
and propagation. The benches were immaculate; the mother plants, some over
a decade old, in big pots, perfectly aligned and cared for. The shading
was provided either by bonsaï-like conifers above the benches, or
the usual netting, easily put on and easily removed.
After having admired this for an hour or so, and after
having purchased at least a fraction of what we’d have liked, we sat down
to coffee. Then the real shop talk started. Often, I was at a loss to translate,
but the easiest part I remember well : the “THING” Czech hybridizers –
and indeed, hybridizers all over the world – are after is... a red Porphyrion
saxifrage. Red, not pink-red or orange-reddish. As Jan put it – “like the
Soviet flag”. Stacks of pictures were produced, just making our mouths
water with greed for these magnificent little plants, covered with blossoms,
like Joseph’s coat, of many colors. And then – and then – there it was
: red, blood red, communist-red, if you wish. The new hybrid. No name as
yet... but you may be sure of one thing : its father being Karel Lang,
when he releases it – and it should be soon – it’s going to be perfect.
Just like his nursery.
Well, folks, this has
indeed been a trip to remember. All we saw was personal, beautiful, often
perfect, cared for with love and passion. Definitely something to copy
– or, at least, try. To take ideas from. To admire. The five gardens were
all different, except one thing. It struck me as strange already in the
Tlatla garden – and it proved to be a stalwart feature of all the other
rockeries we visited. While the plants being propagated in nurseries and
on the hybridizer’s benches were all perfectly and irreproachably labelled,
there was not a single label to be seen in the rock gardens proper. Not
one. “The rockeries are given over to beauty and enjoyment. The little
plastic labels would only spoil it.”
It’s Ota Vlasak who said it.
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