August 2014

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

LAST WEEK I was coincidentally at the botanical garden in Cologne, Germany, I say coincidentally because I was flown there by friends for a birthday party. I had an unscheduled half-day to myself in a rather rushed and fun five days of celebration and visiting.  The weather was summery: humid, sunny and easy to be lazy in. I could have scoured an air-conditioned museum for treasures, shopped for shoes—I love German shoes, they fit my German feet—or just hung on the banks of the Rhine and sunbathed. But I had heard that there had been major renovation at the botanical garden: Die Koelner Flora. 

 

 

 

 

It is the anniversary of the original pleasure garden, Die Flora, and the adjunct botanical garden of the University of Cologne. One hundred and fifty years for the former and one hundred for the latter.  It seemed odd that only a few years ago plans were being laid to deconstruct the garden and make a simple city park. But the  citizens would not have it. The cooperation between the city and private concerns, did more than keep it open. They gave it new life.

The corner stone of the resurrection and centerpiece of this Double Jubilee is the glass palace originally built in 1864  inspired by the Crystal Palace in London. As Cologne, the western most major city in Germany, was bombed in 1942 destroying over 90% of the city,  the botanical garden was hit with over 120 bombs destroying the glass house and much of the garden.

The original barrel vault glass ceiling has been replaced after 62 years. While I was there the last buffing and scrubbing in preparation for the Jubilee on August 14 was happening. I could not enter the new building, but the gardens remained open, so I was able to visit the small but jam-packed garden again after nearly 15 years.

Cologne is a media town with thriving television stations and publishers of all sorts. It is also a great music city with clubs and venues to rival Seattle. Cologne is not a garden city. Yet Die Flora is remarkably well kept and innovative:

I always marvel at their annual planting that can be expectedly formal and baroque to go with the period of the Festhaus, the celebratory pavilion at he gardens center.

 

 

 

 

 

 

But also the more modern and seemingly casual meadow like planting of of annuals throughout the park.

 

 

I managed to make a living as a gardener her back in the 90s, in this “non-gardening “ town. The botanical garden was my classroom, where I could see plants I hadn’t encountered before, see what survived this climate just a tad harsher than Seattle’s.

 

 

 

The bombs of 42 had somehow missed the big trees planted at the parks inception. So there is a wonderful canopy to stroll under on sunny summer days. Just last week the heat was so intense there, that even at 8 a.m., I was in constant search of shade while I toured the garden.

 

 

 

 

I love botanical gardens, not just for the escape from city life but for the plants. I saw many plants for the first time in Die Flora….

 

 

 

 

…the lovely Clerodendron ugandensis for example.

 

 

 

 

Or the  hardy citrus Poncirus trifoliata. I was so excited about the golden bitter oranges of this tree and the remarkable fragrance they impart, that I immediately added the tree to my wish list after seeing it in Die Flora. I now grow one in my garden here in the Snoqualmie Valley, with a climate very similar to that of Cologne.

 

 

 

 

Even this time I saw plants I had never seen before like Hauya microserata a woody tropical relative of our evening primroses.

 

Die Flora has a collection of over 11,000 plants ranging from tropicals to alpines, from desert to North American Prairie plants. It is the only German garden to be recongnized as an Internaational Garden of Camellia Excellence by the Inernational Camellia Society. Many of the 650 varieties they grow are housed in a sub-tropical greenhouse, but there are also many that are hardy and grow outdoors. The camellias were all through when I was there…

 

 

 

 

…but not the dahlias. They grow over 330 varieties represented by 12000 plants in 10 different locations in the garden. I couldn’t help but stop to see what they were growing.

 

 

 

 

I was smitten once again by the simplicity of this pure white one.  (I couldn’t find the tag).

 

 

The German fondness for North American prairie plants is legendary. One might even say they gave them to us in a round about way. Die Flora was no different:

 

 

vast planting of herbaceous perennials are seen through out the garden, many very familiar to us American gardeners.

 

 

 

 

Yet there is also a feel for the exotic and tropical. Here hardy planting with a tropical flare.

 

 

 

But elsewhere true tropicals thriving in the summer heat and humidity lend….

 

 

 

incredible and unusual beauty to this humble garden.

 

Though the elements of the past remain: giant 150-year old trees and sculptures…

 

 

 

…like this “Venus und Amor” sculpted by Anton Werres back in 1863 for the garden.  (It was saved from the cataclysmic bombing and rests peacefully among the cactus in the desert house.)

Die Koelner Flora will not only celebrate the past on August 14, but also it’s vibrant future…

 

 

 

…as another, newer modernity finds a place in this old garden.