Germans and their gardens

I saw that story too. hilarious! My husband's German gnome (actually, I think it was Belgian) got stolen from our CA home on Halloween a few years ago... it was the most angry I have ever seen him. God forbid anything REALLY bad ever happens to him!

that story also featured in the film "Amelie"

Additional photos of Frau Expaticus' garden. She must be the exception that proves the rule when it comes to germans not having a green thumb.

Since none of the neighbors have ever spoken to us, this is the first time it's ever been seen by anyone outside of the immediate family.

I have to say, the balls confuse the hell out of me.

Expaticus -- lovely garden!! I have almost all of the same perennials... she is a "garden nazi", like me! No rhododendrons though... they wouldn't make it in my garden until the redwood trees get bigger. And oh, they WILL.

I will have to take some more pics. I have been slaving away in my garden ever since we got back. There is an amazing amount of wildlife in mine. The other day, I nearly stepped on an enormous snake! Tons of butterflies... I plant specifically for them.

Man, I know which TTer I want to visit when I get back to DE. I have serious pond envy!!

Expacticus your garden is gorgeous. Give your wife a medal, she has done a brilliant job. Makes me want to go out and use a rotovator all over our garden.

Ours is a "work in progress", ie it is progressing from being a German garden with bushes planted along the perimeter and in front of the window for privacy, to an English garden. ie we have dug borders and planted like mad so that we have good things to look at from the house, instead of flowers next to the house, which we can't see and which are there for other people to look at. There are lots of old manky shrubs to still pull out, a few trees to get under control (who turned the light out?) but my co-worker has gone on strike and says he has dug up his quota of roots for a month or two.

I think that the gardens in front of houses are often very pretty, usually a combination of the aforementioned privacy shrubs and flowers. But often the garden behind the house is very basic. Also I was always a little bemused to see that the flowers in the small front "gardenettes" were bought in pots already in flower - sort of instant gardening I suppose.

We took the approach of allowing the front hedge to grow to about 12 feet high and completely seal off the place from prying eyes ... which also keeps the locals from pitching litter ("let a thousand Tempos bloom!") into the yard. Then we did the same thing you describe around the house itself. As I posted earlier, BBC gardening shows have influenced our mostly intuitive design and had my wife relax from the factory-installed germanic compulsion to prune, cut, snip, saw, bind, spray, and overwater everything in sight and just let things go a bit to achieve the perfect level of insouciance.

Thanks for the feedback. I do much of the grunt work, but Frau Expaticus is the horticulturist, and she has an aversion to "store bought" plants. We're lucky enough to have a glassblock greenhouse on the backside of the old garage so things can overwinter. She keeps the immediate yard immaculate, and I handle everything over the back fence. For years this has been paddock and meadow maintenance (which provides a lot of the potting soil) and removal of downed trees, but I caught the gardening bug myself this year and put in a vegetable garden; no photos until it grows in a bit more impressively. I started to break the sod and turf by hand, but then caved in and borrowed the father-in-law's Mantis, and I'm thinking of getting one for myself as it's brilliant and runs on the same 50:1 mix as the rest of the outdoor power equipment fleet.

As others have said, that's a really beautiful garden, Expaticus. Great colour effects. In general, I think there's no doubt that English (plus Welsh, Scottish, ... ) gardening is superior to the average German example. I guess when all your neighbours put a lot of effort into their gardens, it's a stimulus not to fall behind, and that's how the tradition grew. I especially like country gardens where everything grows seemingly without too much order.

My parent's garden is a bit of an "Öko" garden. Since it is on a descending plot, it's difficult to mow the lawn, so it's rarely cut and looks like a meadow, with dandelions and wild marguerites that simultaneously turn their blossoms towards the sun. There's flowers, herbs, fruit trees and shrubs (which mean a lot of work harvesting all of it). My father is particularly proud of an apple tree with several different apple varieties growing on it.

My parents garden has a large patch of 'meadow' (long grass that isn't ever touched by strimmers or lawnmowers), my dad, being a pretty serious amateur ornithologist loves it because certain types of birds go crazy at this time of year feeding on the bugs that fly around in there.

My garden is somewhat "wild"... English country style. It would definitely drive most Germans mad.

I have thousands of bees, and I am allergic. "no fear!"

I definitely had more birds when it was just a "native meadow" (tall grasses), but I still have a lot.

night photo, from deck:

Nice deck, where's the garden?

The pictures I have are from a year ago, when it was just planted... it's quite different now! But here is one little corner, just before we left for DE.

(So is this the official garden thread now? If so, I will post more pics later, when I get around to taking them. )

Not sure if it is just here but I have noticed that the locals seem to spend a lot more care and attention to their front gardens than the ones out the back.

Obviously that is because the one out front is seen by everyone.

Same with the Kleingarten bit that is on the outskirts of the village, the rules state that 30% of the land must be used to grow vegetables so it is but the rest of it looks like something from a gardening catalogue.

I love UK gardens - recently back there and it was lovely walking along a suburban street and checking out the front gardens. But where I live in Berlin, there seems to be loads of nice gardens too. Also some wonderful allotments to be seen from the train. Some gardens are planted a little sparsely - I grant you - plants dotted here and there - but even in the UK suburban street mentioned above there were a few with piles of bricks, old caravans, or just a lawn.
Mlovett mentioned the harsh winters here - so much worse than the UK, perhaps beginners lose heart more easily? Also, the gardening TV shows don't seem as good - seem to concentrate on how to plant the bedding plants and make a wreath. But i do love the way major forest trees are planted all over the gardens and not just at the edges as in UK and Ire. There we've all been terrorised by horror stories on subsidence.

If anyone needs a garden fix I recommend a visit to Berlin's Botanic garden €5 per visit or €25 for 6 visits in one year (ticket is transferable too) www.bgbm.org

BTW, can anybody explain why rhododendron and azalea are so popular? I'm in Berlin, with sandy soil, yet I see them everywhere. And they seem to be thriving too? Anybody?

Azelea plants thrive in sandy soil so do rhododendrons it is their natural habitat and are shallow rooted plants.