Ferdinand Hlaváček (1822 – 1897)
Founded his garden-husbandry in a place of a former pond in Jaroměř
in 1859. He was said to have a merchant talent since his childhood.
As an adult man he meliorated a marsh and besides growing flowers
and vegetables he started to deal with selling seeds. He used
to travel round his country but also abroad to get seeds. The
family still has a box for sneeshing brought by a Dutch seedsman,
who wanted to meet his good customer.
František Černý (1865 – 1925)
The first one with this name in the family of gardeners. František
got a training in gardening. At first he worked in Moravia. In
1888 he became a gardener in Rotschild's park Hohe Warte in Vienna,
which was even more famous than the gardens in Schönbrunn. Local
greenhouses supplied Austrian castles with flowers. The Baron Rotschild
was one of the richest men in the monarchy and he loved flowers.
Exotic stuntings and a lot of decorative plants had to be part
of his festive tables.

František Černý wanted to gain independence. It is said that a
certain countess refused to employ him because he was too handsome
and dangerous for women. After taking part in gardening work for
„Music and Theatre Exhibition“ in Vienna in 1892 he was recommended
to the Count Radziwill as a main gardener in the Russian part of
Poland. However, he started to work for his relatives - the family
Rembelinsky – in Krosniewice in the end. He got a luxurious flat,
a horse, a carriage, a sleigh and a good salary. Nobody knows why
he left after a few years. When visiting Jaroměř he met Marie Hlaváčková
and married her. His career moved from castle parks to market gardening
and seed management. He didn't like innovations and never really
took to seed management. He preferred flowers. We still have a
white treerose blooming continuously throughout the season in our
glasshouse planted in his period to enable to decorate bouquets
even in winter.
František Černý (1896 – 1968) and Marie Černá (1903 – 1987)
Next family descendant, son František, returned to seed management.
His father didn't want his son to follow in his footsteps. He knew
the hard work connected with gardening and he fancied his son's
future differently. But František was born to be a gardener and
finally he had his way to his favourite profession. When his father
was already seriously ill František married Marie Mojžíšová from
another old family of gardeners from Náchod. After his father's
death they specialized in seed production and had a clear target
– to shake the monopoly of German companies. They started to deal
with cultivation of petunia, later also begonia, lily-of-the-valley,
salvia, cyclamen and cineraria. It was by coincidence, in fact.
František saw boxes with petunia pendula grandiflora in front of
a seed company in Hradec Králové and it literally bewitched him.
He set off to the greatest petunia paradise – Germany. In 1927
he sowed the first petunia and the following year he and his wife
were already trying possibilities of pollination and selection
of the most suitable plants. Their colourful colony was expanding.
In 1934 the family Černý introduced their first own variety Karkulka
( Little Red Riding Hood ), which can still be found in its modified
form in the assortment. Then further original varieties came. Petunia
was supplemented with begonia semperflorens and bulbous begonia.
Marie Černá dealt with cultivation of bulbous begonia all her life
and beautiful resistant varieties with double flowers are the result.
Černý´s seeds won recognition gradually and after the war pruduction
couldn´t cover demand any more. In 1950 František Černý had to
rent his enterprise to the state and ten years later it was expropriated
completely. Despite that he devoted the rest of his life to flowers.
He used to say „Trading with seeds means trading with trust, in
fact“.
Jan Černý (1928 – 1980) and Alenka Černá (1928 – 2000)
His son Jan got a training in gardening. He met his wife Alenka
at gardening school in Lednice na Moravě, where everybody really
interested in this field tried to make up for his education after
the war. Jan then continued at the University of Agriculture in
Brno. His work was strongly influenced by Professor F. Frimmel,
a pioneer of a new method of breeding of F1 hybrids. He and his
wife started to deal with hybrid varieties at the time when their
enterprise was nearly not their own any more.
In 1959 they introduced the first hybrid Begonia semperflorens
Turov F1 on the market. One of his dreams that came true was a
yellow petunia. Cultivation programme brought a lot of new varieties.
In 1980 Jan Černý died suddenly. It was thanks to his wife Alenka
that the valuable genetic material was preserved in its size and
quality. It was not easy to manage tasks originally shared by three
people. The range was and is enormous. It is necessary to evaluate
up to one hundred thousand plants in one season.
Present
At the beginning of 1991 the enerprise went back to the hands of
the original owners, the Černý family. Nowadays Josef Černý (born
in 1959), Jan Černý Sr. (born in 1957) with his wife Vlasta (born
in 1955) and their son Jan (born in 1978) work in the company.
The firm is still a specialized seed enterprise producing seeds
of own varieties, which are result of a wide breeding activity.
New varieties are launched on the market every year. Seeds are
supplied to wholesale customers, gardeners and flower lovers. Besides
that the company offers a wide range of flower seeds especially
aimed at professional gardeners. More than 100 original varieties
of petunia, begonia, cyclamen, lily-of-the-valley and other flower
varieties have been bred in the company since 1934.