The new greenhouse will start being built at the Arboretum Nový Dvůr this year

Opava - Construction of a new exhibition greenhouse at the Nový Dvůr Arboretum in the Opava region should start this year. The total project cost is expected to be around 120 million crowns. It will open at the turn of 2019 and 2020. This was announced today by Romana Cieslarová, spokesperson for the Silesian Land Museum, under which the arboretum falls.

"The planned budget for this project is 118.5 million crowns. Eighty-five percent will be funded by the European Regional Development Fund, with the remaining 15 percent coming from the state budget," she stated. She added that preparations for the construction site should begin this fall. "Next year we will continue with the construction, and the planting of plants and installation of the dry exhibition should take place at the turn of 2019/2020," she said.

According to her, the arboretum needs the new greenhouse primarily to present to the public plants that are currently only housed in the cultivation greenhouse, and visitors do not have the opportunity to see them in their full glory.

The new greenhouse will thus feature a modern exhibition, allowing visitors to view a wide range of interesting exhibits from the plant and animal kingdoms. There will also be water elements and attractive tour paths, as well as a dry exhibition showcasing the rich natural history collections of the Silesian Land Museum. The greenhouse spaces will be used year-round for educational programs, thematic workshops, lectures, and exhibitions, among other things.

The arboretum in Nový Dvůr has around 7000 species of plants, trees, and herbs. Visitors can see heathland plants, peat bogs, coastal sand dunes of the Baltic, Himalayan plants, collections of trees from China, the Far East, and Japan, as well as extensive collections of trees and herbs from the eastern and western coasts and the Midwest of North America.

The arboretum is famous for its large collection of the Rhododendron genus, which is among the richest of its kind in the Czech Republic. The exhibition features representatives of giant sequoias, Arizona's bristlecone pine, which exceeds 4000 years in age in its homeland, and the evolutionarily ancient, sacred, and medicinal ginkgo, a survivor from the time of the dinosaurs.