Courage for Disorder

The second part of the report on the autumn works in the gardens of the Alpinum Schatzalp is about cutting back the plants. Because this measure will shape the winter and, above all, the upcoming season. The Alpinum garden team reports:
Continued from October 6th
Pruning is a completely different chapter. We constantly ask ourselves the question, what are we cutting back and are we cutting back at all? Basically, it should be said that we are not doing anything wrong if we don’t prune at all in the fall. This leaves insects, small animals, spiders and birds with hiding places as well as one or two morsels of food. In addition, the teasel plants or the rose hips with snowcaps and hoarfrost are a wonderful sight in winter. At least we shouldn’t deprive ourselves of this completely. Courage to be disorderly is a keyword that we can easily stick to.
But if we want to cut, there are a few hints to keep in mind. First of all, pruning is always an injury to the plant if it has not yet completely grown in, i.e. gone to rest. Therefore, perennials are cut back completely, if at all. Above all, we should cut those that we don’t want to go to seed and take over the bed more and more next year. But that also means that we leave those we would like to see seeded out. So we are already playing with next years design.

Don’t cut too much or too hard – But if we think about sub-shrubs, such as lavender and sage, a complete pruning is sometimes fatal, because the woody lower parts of these creatures then freeze and do not manage to sprout again in the coming spring. So it’s best to leave trees alone and wait for the coming year to see how the plants coped with the winter. Then We can reshape. In order to protect the small and large bushes from snow breakage, it is recommended to tie the plants together compactly but loosely enough with coconut tape. But let’s be careful not to pull on them too much so as not to damage the bark and nerves.
At any time you can take a walk with us on the Schatzalp and watch how we act in autumn with our cheeks red from the cold. Maybe you can already catch glimpses of next year. Because, as you have just read, a lot is happening during this time. When it’s completely over outside or dark, cold and wet, we can still revise our plant lists, write new labels and information boards and prepare next year’s program.
Our theme for the botanical weekend has already been decided. We will celebrate the coming year 2024 with “medical and psychoactive”. So if we don’t meet again this year because you are now preparing for next year in your own garden, we wish you all the best and thank you very much for a great season, your visits and your consideration for our most fragile but most important living beings.

Planting season in the Schatzalp Gardens

Since a little snowfall in September it has been clear:

we are rapidly approaching the end of the season. So what do we do to prepare the garden and its inhabitants for winter? Clear away? Is that even true? The Schatzalp garden team reports.
“Not quite, because first we have to enjoy the wonderful autumn. The many colors and spicy smells, the new plant catalogs and flower bulb markets. It’s not for nothing that the golden months are harvest time. Harvest time, another tidying, final expression. It’s partly true, because we botanical gardeners are also harvesting now. However, primarily seeds of some plants that are important to us so that we can exchange them with other gardens or sow them again ourselves. This is how we protect stocks and preserve species that are important to us. A nice task. Here you can observe completely different plant wonders. There’s no thought of finishing yet anyway. It’s high season again for us and for the work in the garden. Autumn is not only harvest time, but above all, planting time. The next, the next few years of these temporary works of art need to be created. Preferred before hibernation.
Many plants love autumn as a planting time. They are now developing the root system again in preparation for their resting period. Candidates that should only be planted in autumn are, of course, the onions/bulbs that bloom in spring: tulips, daffodils, checkerboard flowers or the many types of ornamental allium. Bulbs are planted in abundance in the ground approximately twice as deep as they are tall. Many perennials and deciduous trees also prefer to be planted in autumn. Peonies, for example. If they are planted in spring, they will take almost twice as long to grow or will not bloom. Here the autumn buds, the small, red, pointed-conical shoots on the tubers, determine the planting depth. These should only be visible at the highest horizon of the earth. Many irises, also prefer autumn. When it comes to planting depth, it depends on which species we are dealing with. The representatives of the Iris Germanica hybrids, for example, would like their rhizomes to be placed above ground, i.e. on the ground, whereas the Iris Spuria hybrids would like to have their rhizomes planted deeper into the ground.

Cheating in autumn – Autumn is also a particularly good time to plant short-lived, biannual species such as mullein. These plants form a rosette of leaves in the first year and overwinter in this state. If they do well, they will bloom the following year. It is therefore possible to cheat a bit with autumn planting and be able to marvel at the flowers in the first year.
Protect the beds – But as always, there are of course also plants that don’t like autumn as a planting time. These include, for example, specialists from the Alpine zone. These experts are no longer able to dig their roots deep enough into the earth in time and prepare sufficiently for winter. What is certain, however, is that a newly created bed with residents preparing for winter should be disturbed as little as possible. So it’s better that we move the ski slope and curling track to another location, because a meter of loosely fallen snow insulates down to minus 20 degrees. One meter of accumulated or compressed snow only insulates to minus 5 degrees. In addition, the new shoots, although very strong, find it much more difficult to grow through packed ice. If you are not sure of the borders of the bed, a small ‘fence’ with a string helps to remember the plants you have planted even in winter and to wait with anticipation for their shoots in spring.
Believe us, every spring it’s more exciting than any ‘action thriller’ to take a look at the beds again and again and watch what’s happening there.”

The torch lilies are lit

A very special genus of plants comes from the mountains of South Africa to European gardens. The torch lilies (Kniphofia) have long since faded in the valley. On the Schatzalp, in the botanical garden, they are planted in a cooler area and are still in bloom.
They are named after J. H. Kniphof, a doctor from Erfurt (1704 – 1763). In the autumn sunlight they honor their common name with bright colors. They bloom from yellow, orange to whitish greenish and even with black-brown flowers. There are about 70 species, 47 of which come from South Africa. The winter-hardy species in our mountains, around 20 in number, all come from the Drakensberg, most of them from Lesotho. They usually grow in damp to wet places with plenty of summer rain, but can also tolerate drier locations. As garden plants they have made a career primarily in England, New Zealand and the USA. From there many garden hybrids came to Europe.

A banquet table for insects

The umbelliferous plants (Apiaceae) are still scarce to see  in gardens. On the one hand, it is because they are simply dismissed as wild chervil, which is commonly known and on the other hand, they have come into disrepute due to the large giant hogweed. Which has become famous as an invasive neophyte. This plant family is one of the most important for animals and humans. They are usually valuable fodder plants and seem to be a banquet table for insects of all kinds. They can be wonderfully incorporated into meadow-like plantings in terms of design. They are currently gaining some importance due to the naturalistic use of plants. The Alpinum Schatzalp houses a very large range of Apiaceae. This also applies to some Angelica, which may remind some people of giant hogweed and are wrongly dismissed as such. But be careful, the family also harbors one or two poisonous species. Here you can see a photo of a short-lived, 2-year-old species from eastern Siberia and northern China, Angelica gigas. It is not phototoxic and impresses with beautiful dark red inflorescences. It is a plant for fresh and wet locations.