Anežka Daníčková has been the head of the Botanical Garden FTA since May 2021. She graduated from the Garden Architecture programme at Mendel University in Brno and before joining the Botanical Garden FTA she worked in construction and design in garden architecture. She continues her parents' work and continues a long family tradition – her dad is a landscape architect, her mom is a landscape designer and two aunts are gardeners, her great-uncle was a cactus collector and grower. She has known the environment of the botanical garden since her childhood - the area, the greenhouses, the plants and also colleagues and employees.
In the Podcast, you can find out why the Botanic Garden is so important to the University, what makes it special, how many species of plants and animals you can find here, how extensive the collections are, or whether there's anything you can buy and take home.
BOTANICAL GARDEN FTA
The Botanical Garden of the Faculty of Tropical AgriSciences, CZU in Prague was built simultaneously with the construction of the entire complex of the University of Life Science in Prague. The operation of the greenhouses (under the name of the original Institute of Tropics and Subtropics) started on January 1st in 1968. In 2011 the Botanical Garden fulfilled the strict conditions for joining the Union of Botanical Gardens. Since January 1st in 2013, the Institute of Tropics and Subtropics (ITS) became the Faculty of Tropical AgriSciences (FTA), which led to a change in the name of the Botanical Garden. The Botanical Garden of the Institute of Tropics and Subtropics of the CZU in Prague became the Botanical Garden of the Faculty of Tropical AgriSciences, CZU in Prague.
Currently, the Botanical Garden has an area of 3 800 m2 (including outdoor areas). The exposition of the Botanical Garden is divided into indoor (5 greenhouses and 2 polycarbonate covers) and outdoor areas. The greenhouse area of almost 1 400 m2 contains 1 500 tropical and subtropical species of useful plants divided into several thematic collections (national citrus collection, tropical plant collection, subtropical plant collection, annual useful plant collection, chilli pepper collection, outdoor medicinal plant collection, outdoor tea tree collection, etc.). The collections show utility plants that are grown all over the world for their direct or indirect benefit. The collection of plants is so unique due to its subject matter and scope that it cannot be seen anywhere else in the Czech Republic or Central Europe. The collection of useful plants, like the collections in other botanical gardens, helps for ex situ conservation of living plants, for teaching students from the faculty and the whole university, for education and training of the professional and general public in botany, agriculture and environmental protection, and also serves for a relaxation.
