Discover rare orchids in České Budějovice – Fun at your fingertips!

At the Orchids and Their Tropical Neighbours exhibition at the South Bohemian Museum in České Budějovice, you can look forward to hundreds of blooming orchids that will dazzle you with their colourful flowers of all shapes, colours and scents. You will also see bromeliads (from small species to large and strong ones), tillandsias, which grow only thanks to air humidity (including specimens over 60 years old), and the exhibition will also feature a variety of carnivorous plants.

A tropical paradise full of colours and scents returns to the South Bohemian Museum

The traditional sales exhibition will take place from 6 to 22 February 2026. You can look forward to many rare orchid specimens. It is open every day from 9:00 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., including Mondays. In addition to the sale of plants, there will also be an advice centre for growers, an educational programme for schools and a flower workshop. This year’s orchid exhibition will also include a corridor exhibition entitled The Beauty of Butterfly Wings. Discover the largest butterflies in the world and the diurnal butterflies of the Czech Republic!

At the exhibition, you can also admire the plant known as Vanilla planifolia, which is the well-known true vanilla (an epiphytic vine orchid grown for its fruit, which is used as a spice). Diamond orchids, also known as jewel orchids, are a rarity among orchids. Their beautiful leaves boast golden or silver veins, which will delight many visitors. The Oncidium genus will enchant every household not only with its beauty, but also with its wonderful and intense fragrance.

The Dracula and Masdevallia plants are unique to the exhibition – very rare orchids with bizarre flowers. Some species of the Dracula genus have flowers that open for only a few days and resemble the faces and heads of small monkeys. These plants come from the hard-to-reach cloud forests in the mountains of Ecuador and Colombia. The exhibition also presents many other orchid genera – Phalaenopsis, Cattleya, Dendrobium, Cambria, Bulbophyllum, Brassia, Cymbidium, Zygopetalum and others.

The orchids, carnivorous plants, cacti, tillandsia and succulents are complemented by a display of various small vertebrates from the South Bohemian Zoological Garden in Hluboká nad Vltavou – you can see for yourself, for example, oblovka snails, scorpions, tarantulas, stick insects, crickets and mantises, and you can even look forward to seeing a crocodile!

Part of the exhibition is dedicated to Czech orchids. You will see large photographs of Czech orchids, which are part of the forthcoming encyclopaedic book Photographic Atlas of Plants of the Czech Republic, the first illustrated book containing 9,000 photographs of all wild plants in our country.

Carnivorous plants will be represented in many styles at the exhibition. You will see plants ranging from small dwarf sundews from Australia to giant carnivorous vines from Southeast Asia, which can catch small vertebrates, sometimes even as large as rats. The exhibition also boasts miniature forms of tillandsias. These fascinating plants are characterised by their ability to survive on air alone, as well as their appearance and bright colours. In nature, these plants from Central and South America usually grow attached to trees. Part of the exhibition space is also dedicated to xerophytic plant species such as cacti and succulents.

Advice for growers, guided tours and flower workshop

Throughout the exhibition, a plant grower’s advice centre will be available in the exhibition hall for all interested visitors. Take advantage of the exhibitors’ knowledge and consult them about the most suitable growing practices for your plants. Every 500th visitor to the exhibition will receive a free orchid as a gift, and every 1,000th visitor will receive an orchid and a package of grower’s supplies.

In cooperation with SOU Lišov, the South Bohemian Museum is organising a popular workshop on arranging fresh flowers, which will take place on Thursday, 19 February 2026, from 4:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. in the main building of the South Bohemian Museum (Dukelská 1, České Budějovice). This time, we will focus on flower arrangements made from orchids. The number of places is limited (maximum 20 people). Workshop price: CZK 400.