The castle in Krasiczyn is
surrounded by a beautiful though small park (formerly called a garden),
which delights visitors with it multitude of deciduous and coniferous
tree and shrub species.
You enter the park through the old gate next
to the historical guardhouse. Just opposite, you will notice some
mysterious steps leading� nowhere. They once led into a lane running
along the dyke, from where one could admire the garden from the eastern
aspect; today the lane is overgrown with yews.
Opposite the entrance, at the end of the
avenue lined with lindens, you will see the entrance gate to the
castle, in the eastern wing. You should now turn left along a path
lined with red cedars, pea-fruited cypresses and white cedars, which
ultimately merges with the linden avenue that runs along the whole
garden. This is what is left of the 17th-century geometric plan. On the
right-hand side, you can see the former tennis court, hardly
recognizable today from underneath the plants. Further on, between the
leaves, you can see the upper pond with a small island in the middle,
created by the castle's last owners, the Sapieha family, in the second
half of the 19th century. The linden avenue ends at a historical gate
that once led to the village. It has a sundial at the southern end, and
is placed within a now seriously damaged stonework wall. On the other
side of this wall there were vegetable gardens once, which supplied the
castle's residents up to shortly after World War II. Later, this place
was used as a stables; today camp fires with sausage roasting are held
there, and horseback riding is also available.
Following the path westwards along the wall,
you will find a number of very interesting plant species. These include
a Virginia cedar with a triple trunk, a majestic bur oak, an Amur
cork-tree, and two giant swamp cypresses growing on both sides of the
stream. Walking along the path around the upper pond, you will see a
few specimens of the Douglas fir, which are among the tallest trees in
the park. Partially concealed and hard to spot, there are still some
steps leading left from the pond into a thuja-lined path that once
ended at the gate to the village day-nursery. One more interesting
species growing at the upper pond is the shingle oak, with smooth,
coriaceous entire leaves which turn brown in the autumn and stay on the
tree until spring. This tree was brought from North America.
In the park, you will also find some very old
trees with stone tablets on which the birth dates and names of the
seven Sapieha children from the mid-19th century are inscribed (Jan,
Adam, Paweł, Leon, Władysław, Helena, and Maria). It was the tradition
to plant a linden tree if a daughter was born, and an oak in the case
of a son. Walking further along, you will see the lower pond, smaller
and much shallower than the upper pond, and over it - a bridge leading
to the former main entrance gate in the western wing, which led through
the clock tower into the castle courtyard.
Though the park's arrangement is clear-cut,
some parts of the garden seem unfinished, half-formed. One example is
the whole northern part of the park and the thuja-lined path opposite
the castle's western wing, planted in the 1930's. Hundreds of thujas
and yews were planted at the time. Today, it looks a little wild, and
perhaps that's exactly why it is so nice to walk along it.
The Sapiehas were enthusiastic travellers,
and brought back seedlings of interesting and valuable trees and shrubs
from every journey. Among the exotic plants, apart from the
afore-mentioned cork-tree, bur oak and swamp cypress, the most
impressive is the tulip tree growing in front of the former stables
building, especially when in bloom. Its yellow flowers, which are
similar to tulips, open up in July and remain on the tree for about 2
weeks (sometimes longer). The fruit stays on the tree until winter. The
London plane, a southern European species, has beautiful light-coloured
bark. Also worth seeing is the maidenhair tree, with its conspicuous
fan-shaped leaves with parallel ribbing. The leaves' luscious green in
summer and lemon yellow colour in autumn is a contrast to the dark
green backdrop of the thujas. This species was brought from China,
where these trees were worshipped from time immemorial. The maidenhair
tree is unique in the plant kingdom - it is a deciduous gymnosperm tree
(coniferous plants are gymnosperms while deciduous plants are
angiosperms), a relic of the past. Together with seed ferns, maidenhair
trees existed in the Palaeozoic era. This plant has medicinal
properties. The specimen in Krasiczyn is a male; female specimens have
fruit that has a pungent odour rather like the smell of rotting meat.
Next to the maidenhair tree is a group of Podolya smoke-trees, which
take on interesting hues in autumn and have fluffy fruit. Nearby is a
magnificent example of Canada hemlock. The park also has magnolia,
catalpa, and mahonia trees.
There are also plenty of indigenous plants,
though most of them have been forgotten by today's gardeners. One
example is the European bladdernut, once grown widely in this part of
Poland, where its northern limit is. This is a shrub or a small tree
whose leaves are very similar to the European elder's, but are a little
more delicate. The white, fragrant flowers are a pleasure to see in
late April and early May. The most interesting thing about this plant,
though, are the three-parted spore-capsules hanging on long pedicles,
which make a rustling sound in the wind. People used the bladdernut's
hard wood to make walking sticks, and rosaries were made from the
interestingly shaped seeds. In olden times this was the main decorative
shrub dug up in the forest and moved to rural gardens. Today it is a
protected species.
Another plant found in great number in
Krasiczyn, and also a protected species, is the berry yew, which grows
here in both shrub and tree form. This is the plant that was made a
protected species the earliest in Poland (and in the world!) thanks to
a ban decreed by Władysław Jagiełło in the Warka Statutes in 1420-1423.
From antiquity, this plant was believed to have magical properties - it
"broke spells" - as well as medicinal and lethal properties (the bark,
twigs, needles and seeds are very poisonous, with the exception of the
red aril). The park has shrubs with fantastically tangled shoots with
"patchy" bark, and one huge tree form. Besides botanical samples, there
are also golden (female) varieties, planted in the 1960's, which are
especially beautiful in the middle of summer and in autumn, when they
are decorated with red arils.
Along the eastern boundary, there are a few
five-needle stone-pines, only found in their natural state in the Tatra
Mountains. Next to the pond is a small larch grove; the tapering crowns
of these trees are a counterbalance for the flat surface of the water.
The special microclimate of Krasiczyn has
allowed indigenous species to attain extraordinary sizes within a short
time (one of the small-leaved lindens is 5.5 m in circumference, one of
the common oaks - 7 m). The castle's surroundings are also very good
for your health, mainly thanks to the special substances exuded by the
plants in the park - phytoncides. Animals are the pride of any park:
her, there are hedgehogs, squirrels agilely climbing up trees and often
taking a look into the dustbins, starlings strutting under the trees,
and a children's favourite - mallards and swans. One unquestioned asset
of being close to nature is the possibility to listen to its sounds, to
mention but the buzzing of insects, the singing of birds, or the
breathtaking evening concerts given by the frogs that are found all
over Krasiczyn. We would like to encourage everyone who enjoys being
close to nature and historic buildings in an environmentally clean
region to visit this small town near Przemyśl.
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