Scientific Papers Series B Horticulture

Early interventions focused on transforming themedieval castle with its sober andunwelcoming style into a modern andcomfortable home, without harming itsoriginality, as shown in the Queens memoirs: 'Idid nothing which would take away the feudalappearance, I didn’t transform the quickness ofthe stairs, I didn’t raise the roofs nor did Istraighten the crooked rooms'. Under theguidance of Czech architect Karel Liman QeenMaria brought improvements for 18 years(1920-1938) in the comfort of housing, waterand electricity connected the whole assembly,introduced telephony and the lift serving thecastle with its four floors and also created thelink between the castle and the park.In the period 1920-1922 the first references tothe Bran Castle gardens appear. Creating apictorial, free style garden, the architect KarelLiman, followed valuing dominant architecturalelements, a unique way of undermining thegreen area to the adjacent construction. Brandomain was expanded, encompassing meadowsaround the castle.In the composition appeared constructionfacilities completed to the requirements of thepassionate queen: Tea house, built fromwooden beams (144m.p.), Guest house, builtfrom raw stone (78 m.p.), Princess Ileana’sChildren house (43 m.p.), New personal house(176 m.p.), Staff housing (378 m.p.), Horsestables, Hunting house, Wooden church, twohuts and six garages.special care, by the chief gardener of the castle,Petre Conrad, under the guidance of the royalparc chief, Constantin Pamula.Figure 6. Queen Maria in the garden (Ion N.D., 2003)The Palace Parc was enriched with “fourtyapple trees, twenty trees, fifty cherry trees,twenty five prune trees and seventy blueberryshrubs” brought by the royal garden directionin Cotroceni. Also, the park lake was populatedwith 1000 trouts and a few swans.Figure 7. Queen Maria by the swan lake in Bran CastleParc (Ion N.D., 2003)Figure 5. The tea house and maintenance people in theBran Castle Parc (Ion N.D., 2003)In the year 1922 modern greenhouses werecommissioned, heated by radiators and a planwas made by the royal house architect (KarelLiman) for a rose garden. The garden hadUnfortunately, on 18 th July 1938, Queen Mariadies. The Bran estate becomes the property ofprincess Ileana, the restorations andmaintenance go on for nine more years. Thefirst years of this period (1938-1943) arededicated specially to the current repairs of thecastle, which due to rare inhabitation suffered(princess Ileana lived there six months a year,respecting the condition imposed by King317