THE KAZDANGA PARK

The Kazdanga Castle park is huge (196 ha), and until recently it was owned by an agricultural school.  Kazdanga is the birthplace of once-famous sour cherries.  This variety has all but disappeared, but the park still features a few old apple trees, one of them with two grafted varieties of apples.  There are old hazelnut and other nut trees, including a Manchurian walnut tree and a hybrid with a royal walnut tree.  Recently, two royal walnut tree plants were gifted to the garden by selectionist Gunvaldis Vēsmiņš.  Other rarities in the park include bristly roses, a rare variety of mountain-ash (a new tree), a gingko tree, a katsura tree, a bladdernut tree, a birthwort plant, wild tulips, and a wild maple tree that is depicted in the herald of Kazdanga.  The aromatic garden of Baroness Lieven is being restored with lilacs, bird-cherries, magnolias, roses and others.  An old "rose hill" has been restored with varieties of roses from Salaspils.