The German Garden - 1

Germany's population's lives is very much apartment-based and use of public space for social use is a central plank in policy. Here is a first go at looking at some of their formal gardens and a little of their history.

Hanover-
Herrenhausen Gardens - formal gardens in Hanover. Capitol of Lower Saxony, and closely linked to the Hanoverians. Thus directly to the English kings and queens of the 20^th century.The gardens were strongly influenced by the English Garden which was de rigeur architecturally and botanically in the 18^th century.

Immaculate formal gardens which at the time did not sit well with me as it meant you were not able to walk on the grass which kind of defeated the idea of a garden for me. However Germany makes up for this with their thousands of wanderwegs** I suppose.

Not very far away is -Schloss Schwoebber (now a hotel with golf course and other amenities) but I lived within the castle for nearly two years in the 70s). The castle was surrounded by an English Garden which has become synonymous with an informally landscaped garden perfected by Capability Brown in a number of famous parks in Britain. The park was full of specimen trees, the schloss edged with a lake, swans, a tea house and an ice house below it.

This castle has a very strong literary connection as the castle had originally belonged to Baron von Muenchausen.

- The tea house set in the English Garden is a gardening preference that gets copied all over fashionable gardens of the 18^th Century. George Washington's home showed his passion for gardening and Thomas Madison 's home has the most delightful teahouse over the ice house. In USA. These connections come together in a spectacular way in

Munich

which has a classic and huge English Garden (Englischer Garten), This equates with Richmond Park near London and Central Park in New York.

It owes its development and style to an American soldier Benjamen Thompson, born in Massachusetts and who fought on the English side. After their defeat in USA he moved in to the service of Carl Theodor. An interesting collaboration which actively had soldiers gardening and learning methods of agriculture in order to create recreation areas which would also be open to the public. In 1789 Friedrich von Sckell the Royal Gardener became consultant to the project. Von Sckell had studied landscape gardening in England and we begin to see how these gardening ideas got to be repeated all over Europe and beyond.

Nowadays the Englisher Garten has a Japanese Teehaus and one park of the park where nude bathing is permitted. And there is a standing wave for surfers..... the ultimate in water features?

Berlin - Botanical Garden in Berlin

Dessau - The Garden Kingdom of Desau-Worlitz - more of which anon

Potsdam - botanical garden can be found the Orangery Palace

**Wanderwegs are well marked walks through woodlands etc.

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