The last weekend of April Mazeikiu Nafta employees attended a voluntary clean-up at Renavas Mansion, one of the most beautiful places in Mažeikiai district.  The company employees together with their family members planted trees, trimmed thujas, swept leaves, and gathered garbage. This is the second year in a row when the company employees have cleaned Renavas Mansion up.

Adelė Cholodinskienė, Director of Mažeikiai Museum (which incorporates Renavas Mansion), was excited with such a voluntary clean-up and pointed out that many meaningful works had been done.    The most significant of them – rare trees planted in the frontal park and the park over the river. She says that interest of visitors in Renavas mansion-house and park is growing each year; more and more people come here on weekends and public holidays. Visitors are pleased to find the clean and tidy landscape. 

Renavas Mansion is famous for its buildings and unique park. The Ensemble of Renavas estate is assumed to have been built in the middle of 19th century. The basis of Renavas Mansion park flora consists of dendroflora of spontaneous species (32 species of trees and bushes). Ninety-two species and forms of trees and bushes have been registered at Renavas Park so far; thirty-three out of the ninety-two are foreign species. Radiata Eastern White Pine (Pinus strobus ‘Radiata’), Yellow Buckeye (Aesculus flava), Canadian Hemlock (Tsuga canadensis), Silver Fir (Abies alba) and etc. are the highly-valuable species in Renavas park. The vegetation of the park includes the thickest Norway spruce (Picea abies) in Lithuania. This spruce is on the list of Lithuania’s Top 10 Thickest Trees.  In 1960, it was announced as natural monument. Spruce’s diameter at a height of chest reaches 1.2 meter.

Several years ago, biologist Nomeda Vėlavičienė wrote her graduation thesis on Renavas flora – about all the plants from herbaceous to woody ones. Her theses did not cover only vascular cryptogams. The above thesis provided recommendations on which trees should be replanted because a considerable amount of trees in the forest-type part as well as in the alleys and parterre of the park had suffered from the storms, gales, time and variable climate. Selection of the trees for planting during the clean-up was based on these recommendations.

Employees of Mažeikių Nafta planted several hemlocks in Renavas. This is one of the rarer species of conifers – a foreign plant, untypical for Lithuania’s nature. The volunteers also planted the Camperdown Elm instead of an Ash (Fraxinus excelsior L.). The dendroflora of the park has now a new member – the American Larch (Laric laricina). Speaking about the vegetation of Renavas park, it has such typical park trees as Columnar English oak (Quercus robur ‘Fastigiata’); it houses a special plant – Radiata Eastern White Pine (Pinus strobus ‘Radiata’) – which will soon require a replacement; Copper Beeches (Fagus sylvatica L. ‘Purpurea’) should be mentioned as being rare plants.

The written sources mention Renavas Mansion from the 16th century. In the first half of the 19th century, the owner of the mansion was Antanas Rönne, who was famous for his passion for gardening. After his death, Eugenijus Rönne inherited the mansion, which later became the property of Count Feliksas Mielžinskis. He established a new six-hectare park in a beautiful place, near the Varduva Creek.
 
In 1999, the Renavas Mansion was enlisted into the register of Lithuania’s heritage sites.