Wojslawice Arboretum

Planting at Wojslawice began around 1811, and in 1880 Fritz von Oheimb, a landowner with a serious interest in plants, laid out the present landscape park and started collecting rhododendron and azalea on a scale that made it known internationally; it passed to Wroclaw University in 1988 and is run as its arboretum. What it holds now are national collections: rhododendron and azalea in the hundreds of cultivars, which flower in May and are what most visitors come for, and separately national collections of daylily, flowering through June and July, and of box, joined in 2021 by hydrangea, peony, periwinkle and the witch-hazel family, along with lilac, magnolia, conifers and a systematic collection. The setting is a landscape park of about sixty hectares with ponds, a chapel and mature trees. It is a plant collection rather than a beauty spot and it rewards knowing what you are looking at, though May does not require that.

History

The owners of the village, the von Prittwitz and von Aulock families, began planting trees from North America and elsewhere around 1811, and in 1880 Fritz von Oheimb laid out the present design; in 1906 the breeder Rudolf Seidel named a rhododendron 'Von Oheimb Woislowitz' in his honour. The park became a historic site in 1983 and a branch of the University of Wrocław in 1988, 54 hectares were added in 2005, and its rhododendron, box and daylily collections were accredited as national collections in 2011 (Wikipedia, Wojsławice Arboretum).

The landscape

• A park of 1880 - planted from about 1811 and laid out by Fritz von Oheimb.
• Rhododendron in May - hundreds of cultivars, the reason most visitors come.
• National daylily and box collections - the daylilies flowering in June and July.
• Sixty hectares of park - ponds, mature trees and a chapel around the collections.

When to go

May for rhododendron; June and July for daylilies. Half a day.

Before you go

Outside the flowering peaks it is a quiet park with less to see. Entry is charged and opening is seasonal. It is rural and needs a car. Labelling is botanical and in Polish.

Nearby

Niemcza is close; Sleza mountain is north-east.

Key facts