Katy's Garden

A day at the large garden show in Bingen.

This is not a garden show in the usual sense, but rather, a garden for show. Three km of formerly derelict and abandoned river front reclaimed to life and beauty and planted with countless colourful flower borders. The show started in spring and lasts until october, and the area will then be integrated in the new town development. It is a very fine concept, and I can´t imagine a better way to begin the restoration of the riverfront, but I still think that the 14 € tickets are outrageously expensive. Admittedly, the borders are lavishly planted, and can boast an excellent maintenance, and such high standards only come at a price, but since they are somewhat repetitive, the public could have the same show on half the ground and for half the price.

Since my tickets came gratis, however, I can hardly complain, and I have to say it was a nice and inspiring show. The borders are spectacular, packed with tousands of very good plants, mostly sorted in good colour schemes, and grouped in bold masses. Many themed gardens are dotted around, desert garden, topiary garden, the Hildegarten (a herb garden that should be a homage to the local celebrity, Saint Hildegard, but is unfortunately rather shabby, even for a herb garden), a beautiful rose garden, the grass collection even a small cemetery, a bit morbid if you ask me, but I am sure that the local public must appreciate it, since every second shop around here sells tombstones. There is also a very long shady border under the trees less showy and less manicured, but still rather interesting. The low point of the show, is the Blumenhalle, an inexplicable sad collection of "pretty" plants and flower arrangement swathed in satin ribbons and organza. I can only say, they had this long good shed, and they had to fill it, and that they did. What a wasted opportunity. So many better things could have been done with half the money.


It is very interesting to get to see so many good "bedding" plants at the height of their beauty in late summer, a period that is usually critical for so many gardens. It is the proof that there is colour enough and to spare to be had at this time of year.


I am slowly overcoming my pejudice against dahlias for example. They are clearly a great genus but I was shocked as a child by my Granny's dahlias, and thought I would never recover. My Granny can grow anything and bring it to bloom, but from the way she plants, prunes and especially stakes her plants you´d think they are intended for the barbecue, rather than for the garden. She is a kind lady, with a great heart, and voted for the communist party all her life, but still, being brought up during the Fascist period must have left a mark. Plants are marched around in lines, presenting arms and flowers on top of broom handle straight stems, staked with strings and sticks like olives in a cocktail, and never allowed to stray out of their allotted space with a single leaf or tendril. No Fuss is the password, and the punishment for unruly subjects is terminal. Dahlias dominated over this scenario, like blowsy, brashly coloured lollipops on top of their leafless scrawny sticks. They looked artificial, absurdly proud of themselves, offensively ignorant of their state of captivity. They had no idea of what a free flower could look like, and they didn´t care. They were big and colourful and well fed, and that was all they cared for. I always hated dahlias ever since.


I only started to relent in the recent past, when finally it was brough home to me that dahlias, like chrisantemums, come in all size and shapes, and the big blowsy fellows of my childhood should never have entered a garden, their only proper place being the show bench.

Anyway, there ARE indeed dahlias with smaller flowers in gourgeous colours, and a leafy natural habit, that would look good in any garden.

Two varieties that have impressed me today are "Bishop of York" and "Bishop of Oxford". As the names suggest they are close relatives. The first has deligtful, simple, daisy like flowers of pale yellew smudged in rose and orange, a peach of a flower. The second is a very difficult colour to describe, amber tea stirred with coral perhaps, and the flowers are double. Both colours are set off by dark foliage, tinged with deep purple, that is a treat all by itself. There is also another bishop, the "Bishop of Llandaff", but the red flower does not appeal to me as much as the muted and yet warm colours of the other two. Finally, I would mention the tiny Dahlia "Happy Single First Love", that looks like a diminutive relative of "Bishop of Oxford", but with simple flowers instead of double.


Another plant that never really caught my attention but that impressed me today is the Aster. I always found them downright uninteresting, but today I was really struck by Aster pyreneus "Lutetia", a scatter of mauve sparks over a deep green mist. Very cool, very ethereal. The flowers are larger than most asters I have ever seen, but still extremely light and slender.

Finally, I need to write about Anemone hupehensis. As strange as it may sound, I had never seen a plant before today except in pictures, and I had formed in my mind the idea of a graceful plant, ethereal to the point of swooning, but it is completely wrong. There is nothing wimpish in this plant. With their simple heraldic shape and their crown of golden stamens, the flowers are reminiscent, at a distance, of dog rose blooms, but close up the consistence is all different; like a flower imitation in pressed suede they feel firm and velvety, the texture of the veins in the petals deeply grooved, ripppling in the sun. The foliage is bold, thick, deeply serrated, and with a plush, quilted look. The stems are wiry strong. The unopen flowers are round and softly velvety, looking downwards like bells in a fool hat. It is an entirely adorable plant. "September Charm", a tall variety in the rose garden, looked especially good. I got myself a plant in the tiny shop of the show. It is not named but the mauve flowers, tinged with deep warm purple on the outside, are very good.

It is a pity that this horribly expensive shop at the show should sell mostly utterly useless commercial house plants instead of offering some of the really good garden varieties shown in the garden, and an assortment of somewhat less than ordinary seeds. A missed opportunity, for both the show and the public, I think.