About us

The route is the goal…

The history of my ancestors can currently be traced back to around 1690.

The paternal line thus originates from Satzung in the Ore Mountains. My ancestors lived there as settlers, smallholders, musicians, and merchants. My great-grandfather, Robert Ullmann, a trained carpenter and cattle dealer with a passion for manufacturing and trade, then settled in Pockau in the Ore Mountains around 1900. He founded a cattle business there, right next to the train station, in order to create favorable conditions for cattle transport. Trade and distribution expanded to Russia, as documented and purchase receipts in rubles from this period attest.

In order to optimise distribution channels and expand trade, he founded a new settlement in Radebeul near Dresden in 1916 – at the railway junction between Bohemia/Saxony and East Prussia/Silesia – again at a railway station with a rail connection. Pastures and fields for animal feed were also acquired. A nursery was later established on part of the property. This business was later expanded to include the production of fattening geese, bed feathers, and horse trading. My grandfather then took over the business, and my father, too, was introduced to suitable work during his childhood.

The extensive trading activity came to an abrupt end in May 1945 with the Russian occupation here in eastern Germany. My father was taken prisoner of war at the age of 20. My grandfather began to cultivate part of the land and grow vegetables, as ordered by the occupying forces. In May 1946, my grandfather registered the nursery as a new business. After his release from captivity, my father joined the company in 1948. Production expanded, and my father established a strawberry plant business with contract production through licensing.

Under extremely difficult conditions, the first underground greenhouses were built, wells were drilled, and further investments were made as opportunities arose. In the 1950s, more and more ornamental plants, including summer flowers, perennials, cyclamen, freesias, and chrysanthemums, were produced and sold through mail-order plants.

In 1958, after a comparative cultivation of hydrangeas in Pillnitz, my father began to focus more on hydrangea production. In 1963, due to political circumstances, core areas of the farm were virtually expropriated for industrial development. A claim for restitution of these areas made in the early 1990s was rejected. The production of hydrangea seedlings was then established on another part of my great-grandfather's land.

The plants were distributed throughout the GDR, again largely by rail. Unfortunately, for political reasons, export was not possible for a privately run company.

I can still vividly remember the tensions and fears during the expropriation of private businesses around 1972. After completing my apprenticeship as a toolmaker, the question arose around 1980 of taking over my maternal grandfather's blacksmith shop. However, I decided to retrain as a gardener specializing in ornamental plant production and obtain a master craftsman's certificate, and worked in my parents' business.

After 1990, I took over my parents' horticultural business and began producing bedding and balcony seedlings in addition to hydrangeas. Later, I expanded my hydrangea cultivation portfolio to include more and more varieties and species. Modern production facilities, new methods, and new ideas emerged. Export was now also possible – our hydrangeas are now available worldwide.

An extensive hydrangea collection was created and an outdoor model garden with well over 200 hydrangea varieties was established. This is used for screening, testing, evaluation, and new breeding. We test, among other things, sun tolerance, growth, soil requirements, flowering behavior, and more. Our own hydrangea fertilizer was also developed from these tests.

Based on the insights gained from the model garden, I founded HORTENSIENWELT ULLMANN in 2007 as an online shop for consumers. Visitors come from all over the world—primarily from Germany, Austria, Switzerland, the USA, France, and the Netherlands. In Germany, especially from North Rhine-Westphalia and Bavaria.

And so each successive generation develops and pursues its own ideas and continues to develop itself and its environment...

In recent years, we have invested heavily in environmental protection, the use of beneficial organisms, resource conservation, biodiversity and natural production processes.

© Your Reinhard Ullmann

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Note: This text has been adopted unchanged as a reminder of the origins of the Hortensienwelt and Ilona & Reinhard Ullmann and preserves the history of the Hortensienwelt Ullmann