Saxony honors Königsbrück students for preserving 200-year-old camellias

Award for living botanical heritage

The Free State of Saxony presented its annual Children and Youth Heritage Award during the opening of European Heritage Day in Hainichen. The 2026 honor went to students from the Arthur-Kießling-Oberschule in Königsbrück for their conservation project at Königsbrück Castle. The student team focused their efforts on three roughly 200-year-old camellia plants housed in the castle greenhouse. Botanists and conservation authorities consider these three specimens to be the oldest grouped camellias in Europe north of the Alps, representing a rare botanical monument. The state connects the annual celebration of monument preservation with formal recognition of voluntary conservation efforts across Saxony.

Accessible tours and youth engagement

The secondary school pupils conducted research into the provenance and horticultural background of the plants and organized public guided tours. Their program included specialized sensory tours tailored specifically for visually impaired visitors, allowing them to experience the greenhouse collection. Regina Kraushaar, Saxony's State Minister for Infrastructure and Regional Development, commended the school for showing that monument preservation extends into living biology. Kraushaar noted that the students transformed a legally protected plant collection into an accessible piece of living cultural heritage through sustained volunteer work.

That is precisely what we honor with the Saxon Children and Youth Heritage Award: young people who engage creatively and sustainably in voluntary work with heritage protection and preservation, setting an example for others.

Saxony's 250-year camellia tradition

Saxon State Conservator Alf Furkert, who leads the State Office for Monument Preservation, addressed the regional importance of camellia horticulture across the state. Saxony maintains a documented history of camellia cultivation exceeding 250 years, establishing early European prominence in breeding and distribution. Furkert explained that the flowering plants originally functioned as exclusive status symbols reserved for European nobility and the upper bourgeoisie. Commercial trade expanded significantly after Saxon horticulturists refined cultivation methods for broader markets.

Camellias were long considered a precious privilege of the nobility and upper middle class. That their breeding and trade gained such global significance is largely thanks to the Saxon gardening dynasty around Jacob Friedrich Seidel.

Saxony continues to house several of Germany's oldest and most prominent camellia collections. Key botanical holdings remain preserved across four primary sites: Pillnitz Palace Park, Roßwein, Zuschendorf Castle, and the greenhouse at Königsbrück.

The Pegasus program and Open Monument Day

The Saxon Children and Youth Heritage Award has been conferred annually since 2012 during the official opening ceremonies of Open Monument Day. The award honors civic participation within the Saxon state educational initiative "Pegasus - Schools Adopt Monuments". Winning school groups receive both material resources and financial prizes to support their continued preservation activities. This year, the national Open Monument Day operates under the theme "NetzWERKE: Denkmale & Infrastruktur" (Networks: Monuments & Infrastructure). The program directs public attention toward facilities, sites, and networks that connect communities through cultural heritage.