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HISTORY
When and how did I become to be a cactus-fan? The beginning of it is somewhere in the year 1970 when I built a green house. As a decent 24 year-old father I had an idea of growing
salads and cucumbers there because I wanted to provide my family with some nutrition that way. I also grew mushrooms there and on our table we had fried cauliflower or fried mushrooms depending on the harvest.
One day somehow a little Opuntia microdasys appeared in my green house. I don’t even remember how. The only thing I know for sure - I didn’t steel it. My brother-in-law had a mikrodasys too but the color of it was a little bit darker. That fact already arose a collector inside me. Soon I had many opuntias from the light yellow to dark brown and each of them was a little bit different. Than on a country fair someone was selling notocactuses and I was definitely lost. After wards, in 1971 the Cactus-fan Club was established in Chrudim. There someone gave me an advice that the frajlee sprouts up the easiest and I started to specialize on it. Of course that specialization didn’t last for long. I was probably going through the same development as anyone of us. I cultivated everything and step-by-step my collection got specialized on cactuses from Mexico and the USA, especially on echinocereuses and on so called Mexican rarity - turbinikarpuses, ariakarpuses, etc. At the same time
my wife Lida started to grow ”salads” – I mean other succulents – which made our collection more various.
At the end of 70’s I found out that there is a chance to make a ”big money” by selling cactuses. It was when I sold my left over cactuses on one exhibition in Pardubice and I made 500,- CZK on it. At that time, in our club we published our own offer of left over seeds and plants of our club members but I realized that it was not a good way. There was a different standard of offering assortment in the club and the quality of it was very different too. We wanted to solve that situation and we spoke to some serious specialists of different kinds of cactuses in whole the Czech Republic and together we agreed on publishing of our own collective catalogue. In Chrudim beside the Gardeners’ Association we established a salesroom called ”Chrudimsky kaktusar” (The Chrudim Cactus-fan). In 1982 we printed our first big offer catalogue, which was absolutely the best of any catalogues, which existed at that time in the Czech Republic. Of course on one side it didn’t make happy some of cactus authorities but it didn’t bother us so much because on the other side we found a big support and concern from interested people. Since the first selling action our family have been getting on well, which could be best seen inside of our refrigerator.
As our business has been developing as the place purposed for cactuses growing has become larger. On a very small place beside our
family house a little family cactus farm arose. Some members of our family also found their jobs there, especially my wife Lida and our daughters
Sarka and Pavlinka. Our garage changed in to the selling and sowing room. At present there is a place of 200 m2 under the glass where young plants from the seeds are doing the best. They are placed inside of the hotbeds where they are all time on a fresh air. They grow in hard conditions and our customers get resistant and not spoiled plants with thick and hard thorns. The most difficult kinds, for
example, Aztekium, Ariocarpus, Echinomastus and others are placed in the selling
room.
In the season, which begins on 1 May and ends in the second half of October, our selling
green house is opened. You can buy there small plants from seeds as well as
grown-up collecting plants, succulents,
small litops, and also caudex succulents, and euforbies. It is opened every Saturday for visitors but anyone has come on weekdays has been (and always will be) welcomed.
The town Chrudim is not interesting only because of cactuses but also of beautiful medieval town center. There is the Museum of Marionettes, which is a rarity in Europe. Nearby there is a nice chateau with hypnologic collection (about horses) and horse-breeding farm and fowl-run in a beautiful park of Slatiňany.
If you come to Chrudim do not miss the famous Art
gallery. In hot days you can visit a new bathing pool.
Gourmands should not miss the restaurant “Neuperský dvůr”. A nice dinner you can also have in the hotel “Bohemia” where you can book also an accommodation (a double room for 650 CZK). Information: tel.: ++420 469 620 351, bohemia@chrudim.cz, www.chrudim.cz/bohemia
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