Design, nature and species pro­tection in the holiday home garden

The German garden designer Rainer Els­termann is truly multi-talented. He once worked with the German expe­ri­mental film group Teu­felsberg Pro­duktion and fol­lowing a career change, was later suc­cessful on the inter­na­tional stage for 25 years as a  pro­fes­sional pho­to­grapher. He has been planning gardens since 2009 – again as an auto­didact – with great success. First in Germany, now also inter­na­tio­nally.

As part of our network meeting, we met him in his adopted home, the Uckermark in nor­thern Germany. And took the oppor­tunity to talk inten­sively about “the” perfect garden, the special requi­re­ments in the rental sector and the “New German Style”.

Holiday home gardens have to meet dif­ferent requi­re­ments than purely private gardens – espe­cially in terms of main­tenance. From your expe­rience can you briefly describe the main dif­fe­rences?

Issues such as drought-resistant plant varieties, surface drainage via the green areas and the least pos­sible sealing of the soil play a major role. At the same time, however, a minimum of fea­si­bility and comfort should be ensured. And the added value for the neigh­bourhood as well as the sur­rounding popu­lation and land­scape where the holiday home is located is of even greater importance than in purely pri­vately used houses, because a com­mercial use is also always assumed to involve greater respon­si­bility.

What is the added value for land­lords of holiday pro­perties through pro­fes­sional planning?

I think that is obvious.  An addi­tional, high-quality space is created. A place that is used more inten­sively for almost half of the year than any other indoor space.

In the past, it was enough for most people to have a house in the country –  with a lawn and a field next to it. But those times have changed.

Today, everyone wants to con­tribute to envi­ron­mental pro­tection and enjoy the positive effects of it them­selves – such as healthy and active wildlife, for example a large number of insects or birds. Exciting fra­grances and a variety of visual attrac­tions from a carefully planned display of flowers all year round do the rest. Even more so on holiday.

A good example is Die kleine Acht.  Before we started work on the garden, the neigh­bours, bee­keepers since 1962, told us that unfort­u­nately there were no but­ter­flies left and also very little food for the bees. Even in the very first year of planting, they remarked in ama­zement that they had never seen so many insects in one place

Actually, we had pri­marily only ensured a long flowering phase from February to December and planted as many dif­ferent peren­nials as pos­sible in a small space.

Mr Els­termann, we had a look tog­ether at the holiday home designed by the architect Thomas Kröger at Blan­kensee, which is in the process of com­pletion and will soon be published on Holi­da­y­ar­chi­tecture. And you planned the layout of the gardens – as you did for other partner houses. Was that a dream job or is that mis­leading?

Abso­lutely. Thomas Kröger – like the British land­scape designer Dan Pearson, whom I also hold in high esteem – has the great gift that his plans seem to blend in with the sur­rounding land­scape. No matter how ela­borate or radical the design, the layout never seems like a foreign element in the land­scape. Archi­tects whose planning and thought pro­cesses are of   such high quality, even out­doors, greatly improve col­la­bo­ration and, above all, the overall result.

In any case, it is a great pri­vilege for me to be able to work closely with fan­tastic archi­tects, who take the time and trouble to explain their plans to me in minute detail and to include me in all the thought pro­cesses of their planning. This year, for example, I’m working on two pro­jects by the archi­tec­tural firm of Patrick Batek, who has a very dif­ferent approach to Thomas, but one that is similar in that the radical aspects of the design are sub­or­dinate to the logic of the whole, as it were.

Alt­hough I am often approached by archi­tects to do building pro­jects, there is also very fruitful and direct col­la­bo­ration between clients and myself, without an inter­me­diary. This often has the advantage that pro­blems can be solved more easily and not every detail has to be defined in advance. Garden planning is best when many decisions are adapted directly on site and not imple­mented 100 per cent from the drawing board.

The experts have been talking about the “New German Style” for years. Please explain  briefly what this actually means.

In my sub­jective defi­nition of the New German Style, the con­ver­gence of three factors is essential. Firstly, the influence of dif­ferent gar­dening per­so­na­lities of the 20th century: for example, Karl Foerster, who popu­la­rised the use of grasses in the garden; as well as Richard Hansen and his sci­en­tific research (Die Stauden und ihre Lebens­be­reiche [Peren­nials and their habitats]); or for example, Ernst Pagels, who is respon­sible for many varieties of natu­ra­listic plants that are popular today. Secondly, there was the ban on pesti­cides in public spaces in Germany and the ensuing research on resi­lient and robust varieties. Thirdly, in my view, the aes­thetic, nature-ori­ented vision of various European desi­gners such as Henk Ger­ritsen or Piet Oudolf is also important.

I con­sider the ideal embo­diment of the New German Style to be Cassian Schmidt, who has been running the Her­mannshof in Weinheim for many years.

And what are the current trends?

At the moment, of course, all the issues sur­rounding climate change and bio­di­versity are very important. So, drought-resistant plan­tings, com­bined with the longest pos­sible flowering phases.

The most extensive research that has taken place in this regard has been published as “The Great Dixter Bio­di­versity Audit 2017–2019” .

On the whole, it was found that the highest bio­di­versity was found in the most cul­ti­vated parts of the garden (more than in wild meadows, for example) – simply because there is a longer flowering phase. In this way, garden desi­gners are able to con­tribute to species and climate pro­tection without having to sacrifice “design”.

As a garden or land­scape designer, I also see myself in the tra­dition of artists who have always had a research role and worked on a sci­en­tific basis. In this sense, I have been expe­ri­menting suc­cessfully for years with, among other things, non-organic mulch cover or the large-scale use of sheep’s wool matting to sup­press unwanted growth. My own 3.500 square metre garden is the­r­efore not a planned or designed garden, but a con­stantly changing playing field, in which I try out new things.

With all the eco­lo­gical spe­ci­fi­ca­tions that play a crucial role these days, I always see myself as a designer whose task is first and foremost to create an emo­tional expe­rience for people.

You plan a garden; at some point it will be a built envi­ronment – and what happens then?

In the vast majority of cases, I take over long-term care of the gardens at the request of the clients. It sounds strange, but I become friends with most of the builders in the course of the con­s­truction, so we stay in touch anyway and I visit the pro­perty several times a year and make recom­men­da­tions. In addition, in most cases there are small main­tenance teams, with whom I consult.

What are the most common mistakes or what are unrea­listic ideas on the part of the clients?

The idea of a low-main­tenance garden with thou­sands of peren­nials is still wide­spread. And at the same time there is con­fusion about the concept of “gar­dening”.

On the one hand, people like to invest a lot of time and effort in mowing large areas of lawn. But the actual activity of gar­dening, on the other hand, is scorned. Which is sur­prising, because with a fraction of the time that a lawn takes, attractive perennial varieties can be main­tained. Cassian Schmidt, for example, has cal­cu­lated for certain varieties that the main­tenance effort is three to four minutes per square metre and per year. This is more than fea­sible, but of course it has to be inten­tional and first of all understood.

Gar­dening is not a job, but an activity. Once cus­tomers have inter­na­lised this, they are also pre­pared to com­pensate for the diverse added value of a garden with a certain amount of main­tenance.

What do you recommend to holiday homeowners who are con­sidering pro­fes­sional garden planning?

Spend a lot of time in nature and be open to the unex­pected. Look at lots of gardens. There are fan­tastic public gardens — in Germany, for example, the Ebertpark in Lud­wigs­hafen with the won­derful planting dis­plays by Harald Sauer, Planten un Blomen in Hamburg or the Piet Oudolf planting scheme in Maxi­mi­li­anpark in Hamm.

And of course, a visit to state and national garden shows is always wort­hwhile. In some (German) federal states there is also an “Open Garden Day”  where you can get a glimpse of otherwise inac­ces­sible private gardens belonging to garden enthu­siasts.

Website Rainer Els­termann

Book tip:

Rainer Els­termann – Gärten der Gegenwart / Gardens of Now, DISTANZ Verlag.
Hard­cover. German/English. ISBN 978–3‑95476–431‑0, Date of publi­cation: June 2022

Interview: Ulrich Stefan Knoll, April 2022

Cover photo: Die kleine Acht. Draft / Photo © Rainer Els­termann