Beauty and the Beast and gardening in Austria

A wonderrful trip out in Carinthia to Burg Hoch Osterwitz during my recent visit to Austria reputed to have been the inspiration for the film  Beauty and the Beast'. One can see why.   The castle has 14 towers each with a different mechanism to pass through to reach the top. So woebetide any enemy trying to take this little baby!  This little burg sits in the middle of farming country and echoes of a working farm can be found all around the base. The heavly blossoming apple trees were also heavy with mistletoe something I see a lot of in this part of Austria.






The castle's barn or bauhof



I loved this pretty garden at the converted bauhof where there is a mix of flowers and vegetable growing and how about this -  diagonal planting.

http://www.burg-hochosterwitz.or.at/-

The Dutch Garden and its modern influences

When I think of the concept of dutch gardening I just recall tulips initially in my mind's eye.  My first visit to the Koekenhof Gardens was in 1959. It almost hurt one's eyes to see so much colour in a singe vista. I was just not used to it. Any interest in  history  and literature will have demonstrated this Dutch passion for tulips and its dramatic effects  on its economy over time.


'The Black Tulip' by Alexander Dumas and my love of art and ceramics,  tin glaze in particular, taught me about the design of dutch ceramic tulip vases - the larger the more ornate the better. Equally think of Dutch art.


Clearly the love of particular types of flowers, cultural and imperial  heritage will all feed into what are the crucial characteristics that define a national garden -  in this case the dutch garden. 


The dutch garden is known for its efficient use of space and generally dense planting.  Not surprising really as Holland is so densely populated and must live always with an eye on the forces of nature.


An example of the English concept of the Dutch garden  is easy to see from this  small extract from  an article by Mrs C W  Earle in 1887 found in the Virago Book of Women Gardeners:

............by far the most enchanting plan for breaking up a lawn.....is to sink a small Dutch garden in the middle of it. The size of the Dutch garden must of course be in proportion to that of the lawn.  If the proportion cannot be kept,  it would be better to leave it alone. It should have a red brick wall all round it and be oblong or square..........the entrances to it are by brick steps one in the middle of each side......The height of the wall is about three feet from the ground on the outside and five feet on the inside.... pp46-47

However a visit to Holland and garden shows such as Chelsea will demonstrate that such formality does not necessarily define the more modern  Dutch garden. Piet Oudolf and the concept of prairie gardening  is now very influential  as designer, and nurseryman.  Grasses and the tall perrenials are key to his ideas providing height and structure but you will also see clipped hedges of the old Dutch garden.  I am also fascinated by his  design elements of the Lurie garden, the green roof of  the Millenium Centre in Chicago and will come back to this shortly in another blog.  (See references below)


I particularly warm to his ideas as his influences are nature, art, space and time which equally affect my attempts to make my garden in the semi desert. 


The long tradition with bulb planting means of course tulips, crocuses, calla lilies, anemones, narcissus - you still probably cant beat the 70 acres of the koekenhof.


The gardens of Oud Valkenberg Castle are probably a good bet for examples of herbariums, kitchen gardens the early dutch formal garden and so on.

References


www.youtube.com/watch?v=HiPvoxVbi94  .
www.oudolf.com/piet-oudolf/references
http://www.scampston.co.uk/metadot/index.pl for the design of the walled garden in 2004
http://www.kasteeltuinoudvalkenburg.nl/content/engels/garden/plattegrond_e.htm