Meeting of minds

Designer Peter Janke’s ecological garden combines German precision with Beth Chatto-inspired informality to stylish effect

WORDS JONNY BRUCE | PHOTOGRAPHS MARIANNE MAJERUS

A strip of drought-tolerant planting on the edge of the orchard meadow. Dead stems of Eryngium paniculatum rise above the purple flower spikes of Ocimum ‘African Blue’, while plumes of Miscanthus transmorrisonensis contrast with the clipped forms of Taxus baccata.
IN BRIEF

What A plants person’s paradise with a collection of over 4,500 perennials divided into a connected series of garden areas with an active plant nursery at its centre.
Where Hilden, Germany.
Size Three and a half acres.
Soil Acidic sand with areas of clay
Climate Continental but relatively due to the proximity of the Rhine.
Hardiness zone USDA 8a.

Few people in the world of horticulture have such a broad portfolio as the German designer, nurseryman, writer and florist, Peter Janke. His upbringing was surrounded by plants – his grandparents owned a nursery – but Peter initially prioritised architecture. This all changed when he read Beth Chatto’s pioneering book, The Dry Garden, in which he found ecologically sensitive, plant-led design. “It touched my soul,” he says, and set him on a path to Beth’s garden in Essex where he would work on and off for two years. This passion has found expression in a remarkable assortment of more than 4,500 plants, amassed with his husband Michael Frinke in their garden and nursery, Hortvs, near Düsseldorf in Germany.

Turning off a busy street, a straight drive cuts through an expansive front garden to the main house and nursery, which lie at the centre of the garden. The formality of this drive, regularly punctuated with Cupressus sempervirens Stricta Group, is the first indication of Peter’s style, with loose, naturalistic planting tempered by geometry and clipped hedging. Peter may be promoting the lessons of Beth Chatto but admits she did not share his love of topiary. It is fitting therefore that his gravel garden, a direct homage to Beth, shows the most looseness – curving beds run through with rivers of gravel. The remaining plumes of grasses such as Stipa gigantea and Stipa tenuissima catch the low, late-autumn light, illuminating the deepening foliage colour that frames the garden – not irrigated since its creation.

In the dry garden Stipa tenuissima is left to self-seed as rivers of gravel run between drought tolerant perennials. A group of Cupressus sempervirens Stricta Group beat a vertical rhythm, while other plants, such as common teasel, further loosen the scene, their strong skeletons standing out against the deep red of Euonymus alatus foliage.
Moments of clipped, evergreen formality are a counterpoint to the loose naturalism of the main plantings. Early on Peter used large amounts of box but because of the twin attacks of blight and box caterpillar almost all have been removed. Here tight yew hedges underplanted with Alchemilla mollis lead to sentinel clumps of Miscanthus sinensis ‘Rotfuchs’.

Peter recognises how crucial it is to work with the soil – mainly acidic sand – and not amend it too much. On planting, perennials get an initial feed of bonemeal and grit but are then left to fend for themselves; shrubs and trees are watered while they establish. When Beth first wrote The Dry Garden she would ‘improve’ the soil by adding compost and even peat to increase its moisture retentiveness before top dressing with gravel. The thinking has since developed with an awareness that drought-tolerant plants grow better in natural and often more mineral soils. When it comes to planting, Peter says Beth is still firmly in his mind, her maxim of ‘right plant, right place’ and the recognition that, even if plants have evolved in different parts of the world, their shared adaptation to dry conditions mean they will sit comfortably together.

These lessons can be seen in Peter’s silver garden, which sits adjacent to the gravel garden but where sinuous curves have resolved into concentric circles – an increased formality that prepares you for the rest of the garden. In the centre of the garden is a gently raised mound of mainly sand with plants of similarly drought-tolerant adaptation, from architectural yuccas to the felty leaves of carpet-forming Stachys. Peter has ringed the planting with 12 upright willows (Salix alba ‘Liempde’), which, if allowed, would grow into large trees but are cut back hard in late winter letting in plenty of early spring light and are grown out to provide beneficial shade by midsummer. These pollarded trees provide an architecture to the space as well as verticality.

The rusted band of Corten steel edging contrasts warmly with the light greens and glaucous tones of the silver garden. A ring of Salix alba ‘Liempde’ frames the planting. Once pollarded, these trees will let in large amounts of light early in the year before growing out to offer beneficial shade in the heat of the summer.
Beautiful senescence in what was established as the damp garden. In recent years, however, the spring that kept this part of the garden moist has largely dried up as the water table has dropped. Peter is loath to irrigate the garden, meaning that large foliage plants such as rodgersias, hostas, Darmera peltata, Matteuccia struthiopteris and other damp-loving ferns have suffered. Even mature trees have been struggling, especially shallow-rooted trees such as beech.

A natural spring once kept part of the garden moist but over the past five years it has dried up. While the increasingly hot summers exacerbate the problem, Peter also points to high levels of development in the area with building and industrial sites pumping water to lower the water table. There is a further factor in the unpredictability and increased number of high rainfall events. This puts pressure on the local government to create more emergency reservoirs to capture the flood water but this in turn further drains the water table.

What sets Hortvs apart is this special meeting of plantsmanship and design, and crucial to this is the nursery. Peter admits that it is very hard to make money selling plants and it is the design work that supports the garden but that he “could not be a good designer without the nursery”. He goes on to explain that, while he is also keen to promote the same ecological principles in his designs, “my garden is my garden and in many parts has nothing to do with my work for my clients”. This is due to the diverse range of unusual plants requiring specialist maintenance.

The nursery also poses other challenges for, while Peter is totally organic in the garden, he uses slug pellets to protect young seedlings. He has been tempted to protect the hostas in the garden, which have been devastated by a new snail from the Mediterranean, but admits the need to “be consistent”, and is cautious of nematodes, which can affect a wide range of insects.

Peter sees this garden as an important tool for promoting a more environmentally conscious style of gardening where people can be inspired by the diversity of plants much as he was when he first opened Beth’s book all those years ago.

A circular bench allows visitors to take a moment of contemplative rest under the cut leaves of Acer saccharinum f. laciniatum ‘Laciniatum Wieri’ as the low, late-autumn light catches the foliage’s buttery tones.
This shaded walk snakes behind the house along the edge of the garden farthest from the busy road, providing further moments of calm. Peter has accentuated this feeling with the cool, green palette, yet even here the repetition of fastigiate yews provides a formal contrast to the looseness of the perennial planting.

USEFUL INFORMATION

Address Hortvs, Hochdahler Straße 350, 40724 Hilden, Germany. Tel +49 (0)2103 360508 Web peter-janke-gartenkonzepte.de Open April – November, Thursday – Friday, 10am-6pm; Saturday, 10am-4pm. Gardens and nursery open in March and December but close an hour earlier. Garden admission €5.

Gardening for a changing climate

As with most of the world, Germany is experiencing severe weather conditions as a result of climate change. This has been expressed in recent years by hotter summers and prolonged periods of drought often followed by flash floods. This poses a dilemma for gardeners as increasingly regular hosepipe bans mean that it is not possible to rely on irrigation to see plants through the summer. Peter admits that many of his plants have struggled in recent years, but for him it is necessary to adapt.

The gentle undulations of Taxus baccata offer an evergreen solidity to the softness of the grass-heavy planting. This perennial mix will be left all winter to provide habitat for insects and only cut down in March to allow for emerging shoots. The purples of Cotinus ‘Grace’ and Euonymus alatus contrast well with the dark green of the columnar cypresses (Cupressus sempervirens Stricta Group) and the silvery tones of faded perovskia (Salvia yangii). Sharp points of pink come from later-flowering nerines selected by famous plantswoman Margaret Owen.

The most obvious first step in tackling climate change is to use a different palette of plants. But it’s not as simple as just planting more Mediterranean species as many of these, while suited to hot, dry summers, will resent the increasingly wet winters. By creating beds with excellent drainage many issues of winter wet can be alleviated. While large amounts of organic matter can improve the water retention of a soil, too much rich compost and rotted manure can encourage excessive leafy growth that is often more susceptible to pests and disease. Combined with well-timed planting and deep watering during establishment, a poorer soil can actually encourage a larger root system as the plant searches for nutrients. This in turn makes the plant more resistant to drought compared with well-fed, but more shallowly rooted, plants. Early spring mulches with low-nutrient material, such as leaf mould, is preferable as this improves soil structure, drainage and water retention without overfeeding.

Increased worm and insect activity creates burrows and channels that aerate plant roots and improve drainage, and organic, probiotic treatments can also improve the diversity of the soil microbiome. Many of these organisms work in symbiosis with plants, helping to prevent disease while improving access to water and nutrients through the mycorrhizal network. Plants established in this type of ‘living’ soil will be much more resilient to changes in climate and weather.

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