Tulips taking Centre Stage

I always look forward to the tulips, as I am a great fan of bright colours and vivid contrast. And that is what tulips bring to the spring time garden. But not only there, in many a city tulips take centre stage in large bedding displays in parks and public gardens. This year in London the displays are distinctly Dutch and tonal in appearance with the colours of the bulbs and other plants carefully chosen to either match or complement each other.

Images from the Millbank Gardens and the Victoria Embankment with tulips combined with wallflowers (left and right) and with polyantha primroses (middle).

The Green Barrow

Next to Fulham Palace near the Thames lies a large walled garden that has been in place since the 15th century. The high brick walls create a suitable microclimate that aids the development of fruit en vegetables. Since the restoration of this garden was completed in 2012, a team of volunteers has been involved in the upkeep of this lovely spot, unknown to many tourists. Besides activities the volunteers also maintain the Green Barrow next to the Glasshouse that is regularly stocked with plants and herbs grown on site, that can be obtained here.

Bursting buds

With the recent sunny weather spring has finally sprung and the buds are bursting into blooms and leaves. The barren branches of many trees are consciously showing their green leaves as the sap is streaming through the branches. Suddenly nature comes alive!

The Corkscrew willow (left) not only has twisted twigs but the leaves curl as they mature. Hence we used to call this the Curly willow when I was young. Young leaves, like these of the Juneberry, are often covered in soft hairs to protect the developing tissues from harmful sunrays. The Blueberry flowers simultaneously with the unfolding of the leaves. The flowers are like little waxy cups.

Some plants, like for instance ferns, unfold their leaves in a rather dramatic manner by uncoiling along the central stipe (or leaf stalk). Other plants, like this Photinia, show dramatically coloured new growth that contrasts heavily with the older green leaves. Most leaves however slowly unfold bursting the bud. The fresh green of the young leaves of this Kalopanax (right) bring the spiny branches to life.

Axial interventions: the avenues of electoral Berlin and beyond

Following the growth of the Twin City Berlin-Cöln as a result of the growing importance of Prussia within the German Realm the capital city of Berlin grew rapidly from the 16th century onwards and several suburbs sprang up outside of the cities defences. In 1618 The Margraviate of Brandenburg and the Duchy of Prussia where joined cementing the pivotal position of the Elector of Brandenburg within the Holy Roman Empire.

Directly next to Cölln the electoral suburb of Friedrichswerder, which received town freedoms in 1662, was developed. The regular layout was aimed at enhancing the beauty of this new town as the first planned expansion. The new town was located on low-lying ground between the city walls of Cölln and the Spree Canal. In 1668 Friedrichswerder was incorporated into the city defences of the capital of Brandenburg, although it remained a separate settlement. Thus in 1678 a new town hall was built on the central market square.

In 1670 Elector Frederick William gifted the Kleiner or Cöllner Tiergarten (a swampy fenced-off hunting estate directly adjacent to the Spree river and the old city) to his wife Sophia Dorothea. Joachim Ernst, the Overseer of Fortifications, was responsible of the layout based on a strict grid of streets. This new extension of the city received town privileges in 1674 and was aptly named Neustadt before it was renamed Dorotheenstadt in 1681. It was secured by an extension of the city defences with an outer moat, earth banks and walls.

Electoral Berlin with the multitude of axial interventions and grid additions around the old Twin City of Berlin-Cölln with the city of Berlin (1) north and the city of Cölln (2) south of the Spree river The later was expanded with the addition of Neu-Cölln (3) and Friedrichswerder (4). Further west we find Dorotheenstadt (5) and Friedrichstadt (6).These were located adjacent to Luisenstadt (7) and the Grosser Tiergarten (8).

The grid of Dorotheenstadt was aligned parallel to the hunting avenue of Unter den Linden (literally: underneath the lime trees) that had been built in 1573 to link the Residence with the Kleiner Tiergarten and was extended to the edge of the Grosser Tiergarten in 1647. This axial intervention was done according to Dutch examples and planted with lime trees and walnut trees. In 1695 the avenue was extended for several miles to the Charlottenburg Palace and cut right through the large hunting pleasance. At one third of its length a large roundel was created within the Tiergarten with 8 avenues radiating out: the Grosser Stern. This design was based on Dutch examples of hunting forests, so-called Sterrenbossen, but on a much grander scale.  A second roundel was built at two thirds of the length of the axis, without the star shaped avenues radiating from it, but incorporating pre-existing roads.

After the death of the Elector Frederick William in 1688 his son Frederick III, the later King Frederick I of Prussia, had a new city built on the fields west of Cölln. The work on this third expansion of the city started in 1691 and was designed by a team of architects and engineers on a formal, geometric layout based on a grid with several open spaces of distinct shapes (square, rectangle, octagon and circle) and axial streets. The central axis was an extension from the Dorotheenstad north of Unter den Linden. The eponymous Friedrichstadt was entered from this point via the Friedricher Tor, a city gate. In the west the new city was bound by the Leipziger Landwehr, a defensive earthwork. It was also governed as a separate city with its own charter until all three electoral suburbs, Berlin and Cölln were incorporated as boroughs within the new city of Greater Berlin in 1709. After Prussia had been elevated to a kingdom in 1701 the importance of Berlin as a German Capital City rivalling Düsseldorf, Hanover, Dresden, Munich and Vienna increased steadily.

The first series of axial interventions was concentrated on the west side of the old city. The former hunting avenue of Unter den Linden (U) connects the Lustgarten (G) in front of the Hohenzollern Residence with the Brandenburgerplatz (B) with the well known Brandenburger Tor, a ceremonial gate. This splendid street also formed the central line of the Forum Fridericianum (F). The main axis of the new grids sits at a right angle to the original axis and was extended north across the river and south towards the round Hallesche Tor Platz (H). A secondary axis (Leipzigerstrasse) connects Friedrichswerder via the Leipziger Tor with the octogonal Leipziger Platz (L). The small oval Potsdammer Platz lay beyond the Potsdammer Tor. From here an axis (2) towards Schloss Bellevue (3) cuts through the Tiergarten. It crosses the extended axis of Unter den Linden with the Grosser Stern (1). A separately positioned axial intervention is related to the Reichstag Building (4). It follows the basic orientation of the Raczynski Palace that stood here before.

Whilst the development of Friedrichstadt was regulated and planned by royal appointment by Oberbaudirektor Philipp Gerlach, the suburb southeast of Cölln developed in a rather ad-hoc manner along pre-existing rural lanes and roads. This Cöllnische or Köpenicker Vorstadt fell prey to the ravages of the Thirty Years War and was completely destroyed by fire. Between 1734 and 1736 the Berliner Zollmauer (Customs and Duties Wall) was built around the city and its suburbs. The famous Brandenburger Tor on the axis through the Tiergarten is a remnant of this structure that had no military purpose. In 1802 the Köpenicker Viertel within was renamed Luisenstadt in honour of Luise the wife of Frederick William III.

Immediately after his ascension to the throne in 1840 King Frederick William IV commissions the famous landscape architect Peter Joseph Lenné to redesign Luisenstadt and execute an extension of this Borough towards the Flossgraben or Landwehrkanal ,a drainage canal that was dug in 1705. At the centre of the new design is a new drainage canal linking Spree and Flossgraben: the Luisenstadtischen Kanal that was opened in 1852. Lenné designed an axial composition inspired by Hausmannian interventions in Paris with several axes over a basic  grid layout, but incorporating older streets. The new canal forms part of the main axis that culminates in a church and starts at a wide lock. The brilliance of his design shows in the canal that curves away from the central axis leaving room for a secondary axial composition whilst widened sections of the canal served as spatial devices within the side axes with "water squares" at the crossing points.

The Luisenstadt is a contorted grid with several parallel axial streets. Of these only the central axis from the Canal Lock (1) via the Oranienplatz (2) on the main transverse axis towards the Church of St. Micheal (Michaelkirche - 3). The transverse axis connects two squares (one round, one square) on parallel axes. The Moritzplats (4) enforces the junction of the transverse axis with the Prinzenstrasse. The Heinrichplatz (5) signifies a secondary axis that ends with the Church of St Marianne (6) with the Bethanienkloster (7) at an angle of 90 degrees, thus emphasizing the curve in the Luisenstadkanal.

Reddest of spring

Springtime is usually associated with the colour yellow, only think of daffodils, Forsythia, Kerria, Lesser celandine and Cornel. Purple, blue and white are also present in many woodland plants and bulbs, but the colour red is more seldom seen!

The Chinese quince (Chaenomeles speciosa) flowers as the leaves break their buds on almost bare stems covering them in clusters of bright red flowers. Camellia starts to flower in the middle of winter when there is no frost. The blousy red blooms contrasts sharply with the glossy evergreen leaves of this large shrub. The Common dogwood (Cornus sanguinea) is an indigenous shrub with deep red twigs in winter. In spring the new leaves that shield the developing flowers are also tinged red.