The English Garden: Ettenbrühl (Satis Shroff)

I went to Ettenbühl yesterday and it was lovely: the sunshine, the great food, the Markgräfler landscape, Springtime and the splendour of Nature.

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(The red double-decker Train from Bad Bellingen to Freiburg (c) satisshroff)

The English Garden Ettenbühl (Satis Shroff)

 

 

Every bird that sings, and every bud that Blooms, does but remind me more of that garden unseen awaiting the Hand that tills it. (Emily Dickinson, letter to Susan Gilbert Dickinson, 1852).

 

On the way to the English style countryhouse Ettenbühl from Littenweiler, you board a scarlet double-decker train from Seebrugg to the Freiburger railway station. Ah, you see a thrush pair, Drossel is the German name, with their dotted, shiny feathers as the train stops. They look happy as they fly around between the thickets. You can feel the warmth of the sun on this morning and there are hardly any clouds in the azure Schwarzwald sky. If you're travelling by car just search for Hof Ettenbühl on your GPS or Navi.

(Rheinebene, between Germany and Switzerland (c)satisshroff)

The train pulls out of Freiburg towards Schallstadt, Ebringen, Bad Krozing and Bad Bellingen. A 'bad' is a spa and an American Creative Writing professor who was new in Freiburg said once: 'I've been in the Badlands of Nevada but you seem to have a lot of interesting badlands here too: Bad Crossing, Bad Belly etc.' The Rhine area around Markgräflerland is known for its good soil, as are the Neckar Valley and Lake Constance area, and here you can find a good many gardens and vineyards.

Landhaus Ettenbühl lies in Hartingen between Schliengen and Welmlingen.

It's April, a bit early for the roses, but the Swiss come come across the nearby border and you see them buying English roses in pots by the dozen. Time to go potty,eh? This English garden was started forty years ago in the Ettenbühl fields, and in those days there were only trees in the five hectares of land. You can stroll past Granny's Walk past roses and herbaceous borders, past the restaurant and cafe which serves English breakfast and exquisite local food. Then I'd recommend the lunch which is very good, followed by English tea. Here you see elderly Germans and Swiss visitors with their grandchildren.

You take the Yellow Brick Road planted with mixed borders and strictly cut Leyland-cypresses. The Pfingstrose garden is a 'sunken garden' and there are magnificent roses to be admired in the month of May.

There's a garden pond with a pergola and more roses and fat fishes swimming around languidly in the water. A small forest around the garden house has Christmas roses, narcissus, a bulbous Eurasian plant of a genus that includes the daffodil, especially with white outer petals and a shallow orange cup in the centre, and other early seasonal flowers.

You'll love the lavender garden in the style of a Middle Age cloister and you discern the luxurious larkspur (Rittersporn in German) here. There's even a wedding garden with a pavilion and the flowers grow here all the year round in colours to suit the bride's dress. After that you saunter along the lush green lawn to the baroque and the fountain gardens with exotic flowers, herbs and trees.

 

You are greeted by rounded green borders along the Pfingstrose path, philadelphus, hibiscus which bloom till late Autumn. There's Jonathan's fairytale garden meadow and the woodland walk. There's even a rainbow border with roses and herbaceous perennial plants (German: Stauden) in the colours of the rainbow. The potager is a classical English garden with columns made of climbing plants, vegetables, herbs, roses and the formal water garden reminds you of the Renaissance style. The autumnal garden is in Prarie style, and since the place is rather sunny, there's even a tropical bamboo garden with a bust of the Buddha which puts you in a meditative mood, after all a garden is a place where you can find yourself and use the time to contemplate.

The fragrance of the a meadow of lilacs (German: Fliederwiese) with fifty kinds of scents will enchant you. And you know it's Springtime when the 20,000 ice follies-narcissus bloom. If you feel overwhelmed by all these scents and fragrances and wish to take a break, then you can enjoy an authentic English afternoon teatime with Darjeeling or Earl Grey or even Ilam tea all the way from Nepal in fine porcelain: English sandwiches with eggs, cress, salmon, dill and fine cucumber slices, scones with clotted cream, strawberry and orange jam and also fine cakes and tarts. A big pot of tea.

What's most interesting is the staging of Shakespeare's Summer Night's Dream with Elizabethan buffet in which the actor comes to you, you can smell his mask, and the sweat on his forehead. The guy behind the mask is Bernd Lafrenz, who is known to bring Shakespeare back from the books to the folk. Then you know you're in the Tudor times.

The valley looks beautiful when the soft buds have opened all over the tree's branches. The entire country roads are studded with cherry and apple trees, blooming white and pink with flowers. There's fragrance in the air. What a Springtime greeting. The apple trees are flourishing with their fragrant flowers,. The splendour and rapture of Nature overwhelms you.

 

(c) satisshroff:  Asparagus is called Spargel in German.

On you way to Ettenbühl or back to Bad Belly, you come across asparagus fields: rows of earth piles covered with white plastic. Here you see the the workers from Poland, muscular men and unassuming women, bending down and extracting the asparagus under the rays of the scorching run. This is a job most Germans are loath to do because it's a back-breaking job, but the Polish and Romas are jolly and enjoying working in the asparagus fields of south-west Germany. The cherries are made into juices, jam and high percentage alcohol and are used also for the famous Black Forest cakes.

The older fruit orchards have given way to new where maize fields have taken over. You have second thoughts about mono-cultures and wonder if trees, bushes, flowery meadows, small forests, rare plants, birds and bats can survive these humans incursions in the long run.