About us

 

Kęstutis and Viktorija
Kestutis and Viktorija Vysniauskai

Our relatively small (0.6 ha) family-run professional plant nursery has been in business for nearly 30 years and has undergone many changes. We have grown and collected a large variety of plants. Throughout these years, our nursery has cultivated around 17,000 species and cultivars of perennial plants. The majority of these plants are now cultivated by our daughter Sigrida, who runs a specialized website titled Naudingi Augalai.

For eight years now, we have been collecting several plant groups. Daylilies is the main focus of Viktorija’s collection. Our collection with its 2,300 cultivars is one of the largest in Europe. Viktorija is a passionate selection specialist. Every year, she cultivates thousands of daylily seedlings and evaluates them carefully following a set of many strict criteria. Only the best seedlings are selected and registered at the American Daylily Society. As many as 95% of seedlings are discarded. Presently, Viktorija has registered a total of 64 cultivars she has personally cultivated.

Kestutis with Marty Schaffer (USA, Massachusetts, 2022)
Kestutis with Marty Schaffer (USA, Massachusetts, 2022)

Kęstutis collects all types of beardless irises and the wild varieties of bearded irises. Even though we started cultivating Siberian irises and bearded irises 30 years ago, the true collecting of these plants started only 7 years ago.

For many years now Viktorija has loved lilies. At the beginning, she merely collected them but about 25 years ago, Viktorija engaged in lily selection. Throughout these years, she has managed to cultivate many beautiful cultivars, which now comprise the majority of our collection. Lately, she has also been involved in the selection of martagon lilies.

We also collect Hosta (around 600 cultivars) and some of the rarer plants, such as Adonis, Hepatica, Epimedium, Primula.

Viktorija has been passionate about plant selection all her life. In addition to lilies and daylilies, she has cultivated several other species, such as the low-growing and compact heliopsis ‘Debesėlis’  and two beautiful types of lavender that grow well in Lithuania.

"Bearded" Lily seedling of Viktorija
“Bearded” Lily seedling of Viktorija
Viktorija with his Phlox 'Big Ben'
Viktorija with his Phlox ‘Big Ben’

Viktorija has selected a spontaneous mutation of Yucca called ‘Ananasas’, which is most probably the prettiest Yucca that hibernates the best in Lithuania. Viktorija has also cultivated several beautiful cultivars of coneflower (Echinacea) and wild indigo (Baptisia). She has also selected many seedlings of corydalis (Corydallis) of various colors. In the nearest future, she will have more special cultivated plants. However, Viktorija is most proud of her tree peonies, the selection of which takes the longest. Sometimes, the time from the seed sprouting to blooming takes 7-8 or more years. Several of the peony species selected by Viktorija have large double-flowered blooms and abundant flowering.

Traveling is yet another passion of ours. We have started traveling the world when we were students. We have visited all the continents, except for the Antarctica, and observed the majority of biomes, ranging from the tropical moist forests to the deserts and taiga.

Dina

We have made our childhood dreams come true and witnessed the largest blooms in the world (rafflesias), the largest trees in the world (giant sequoias, baobabs) and lemurs in Madagascar, the most beautiful butterflies in the New Guinea, unique animals in the Galápagos Islands and the Amazon rainforest, Komodo dragons and Yucca forests in Californian deserts. In 2022, the pandemic finally came to an end and various countries opened their borders for traveling. In September, we went to the US to visit Marty Schaffer, the most prominent selection specialist of Siberian irises. We spent almost the entire November traveling in Australia and Tasmania. It was a fantastic trip. We observed the most interesting plants and animals in Australia in their natural habitats.

 

January 2023