The wish for ecologically sound gardening using no chemicals and a minimum of fertilizers led to the development of the New German Style Drift- or Prairie Garden.
The principles are simple enough: match soil conditions with plants that become a community rather than stay as individuals or distinct clusters and combine them in such a way that they interact and supply interest at any time of the year. Result: natural looking meadows, prairies and borders which need little maintenance, food and water.

At the Palmengarten Botanical Garden in Frankfurt/Main, a prairie garden was established in 1989. Here a deep gravel base supports a variety of plants – Mediterranean wood and grasses, and also shrubs and herbs.

The entire meadow has been divided into Central European, Mediterranean and Asian sections, but all grasses, bulbs and plants have one thing in common, they thrive in dry and warm conditions and provide passers-by with the delicate aroma of lavender, rosemary and salvia.

Palmengarten
Siesmayerstraße 61
60323 Frankfurt am Main
Tel. 0049 69 21233939
Email: info.palmengarten@stadt-frankfurt.de

At Weinheim visitors can experience further examples of the New German planting style. Also an experimental garden for perennial plants, the Hermannshof is divided into seven different habitats and planted according to soil type to imitate nature.

Applied to small private gardens, modern German planting principles are scaled down here, and it’s exciting to discover which plants can happily co-exist. The fantastic displays include some 2,000 cultivars of herbaceous plants, which flourish in the mild climate of the Heidelberg region.

Hermannshof
Babostraße 5
69469 Weinheim
Tel. 0049 6201 13652

Weihenstephan, another inspirational New German garden, has been established in the small town of Freising near Munich. The visual effect of Foxtail Lilies paired with Euphorbia griffithii and Filipendula, along with Catmint, sages and Stachys is breathtaking.

All plants are compatible for their ecological needs and flower on a large scale due to repeat planting. The garden is part of the teaching – and experimental garden of the University of Munich and apart from the glory of the planting, there is much to be learnt here by the keen amateur gardener.

Lehrgaerten Weihenstephan
Am Staudengarten 9
85350 Freising
Tel. 0049 8161 714541

A superb example of the new German garden style of planting mimicking nature and using herbaceous perennials can be found at the Westpark public park in Munich. The designer Rosemary Weisse is famous for her great drifts of flowers and grasses and her design for a new style of alpine gardens.

Paths wind between terraces to a valley planted with waves of iris and numerous other species. The culmination of German horticultural and ecological research over the last few decades has led to this magnificent garden park.

Westpark
Untersendling, Pressburger Strasse
80539 Munich