The comparisons are no coincidence: Peter Joseph Lenné, Potsdam's director of horticulture and head of all Prussian royal gardens, made the originally Baroque park of Ludwigslust Palace a masterpiece of his late creative period. In huge water basins are reflected graceful sandstone statues and the stately castle , to which long avenues lead. Scattered throughout the park are small gems such as an artificial ruin, the duchess's cottage-style summer house, the mausoleum of a czar's daughter, a neat little church. In Schwerin, Neustrelitz and Basedow, too, the tidying hand of the gardening star of the 18th century is still evident today.
Bothmer Castle: The Secrets of Old Trees
You have to walk through this avenue: 270 meters long, lined with 300-year-old linden trees. Famous, among other things, because the nearly 70 trees have joined hands until recently: Many of the transverse branches were once intertwined. Hence the name: Festonallee - garland avenue. In old pictures, the linden trees actually still look like a woven trellis hedge. But how was this done back then? Garden experts in Klütz are currently trying to find out under what conditions branches join together and are having the linden variety Konings, which was once planted here, grown in the laboratory.
Daniel Förster, gardener at Bothmer Castle, is responsible for the entire castle park, which was initially laid out as a baroque garden and later transformed into an English landscape garden. Sometimes he wonders what these linden trees have seen. How many people have sought comfort and shelter here, how many lovers have hidden? If the trees could speak, what would they tell?
