Author Archives: Bernhard Feistel

Bernhard Feistel

About Bernhard Feistel

Gardener and academic in rural England and sometimes also in his native Saxony, Germany; special interest in herb, maze and wildflower meadow designing and gardening. Norfolk, UK

Yew Xylothek – a touching, reading adventure

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As we can read in this forum or elsewhere, gardening from a distance is far from easy, if not mad; awkward to plan and yet full of surprises. Last week I travelled to Germany for not entirely gardening related reasons but thought I might as well take some rare English bare-rooted fruit trees with me to incorporate into our orchard project there, which we have called our English corner or English fruit circle already. Over Christmas there were spring-like temperatures and I was hoping for a similar winter gap in February. Continue reading →

Staking II, Inula helenum, background left, needed also some support A typical gardening day?

Even in European gardens things can develop so quickly during the growing season that one can rarely afford to stick to an intended plan and carry out what one was planning to do. Or is this due to my ill developed management skills? Although I normally start with a certain list of “priority jobs”, which will already be modified after a morning’s excursion around the area, I often end up doing completely different things than originally planned. Continue reading →

In August with fuchsias, monardas and self-seeded Lychnis coronaria. Behind, already, opium poppy seed heads and clary sage, which, I hope, will also self-seed profusely. (The poppy seeds I spread.) How to enjoy your weeds

Some plants have unfortunate if not unjust names like Helleborus foetidus (which to me doesn’t stink at all) while others with the name weed in them might frighten off people. I found this experience when suggesting Centaurea montana also by its common name Knapweed to people. Yes, it is weedy and sometimes difficult to eradicate from unwanted positions, but for gardeners with some space or gaps to fill, this spreading habit can be an advantage (for a time). Continue reading →

GardenDrum BFeistel herb labyrinth A new herb garden

One is neither a Winston Churchill just by consuming a lot of whisky, nor does one become a Christopher Lloyd just by removing an old rose garden. In fact, I was rather ignorant that the great Lloyd provoked the English gardening world (or loved to think so?) when he dug out his old roses and replaced them with exotic plants. Continue reading →

The children strolling along my mother's relatively new rock garden in the allotment The gardens of my childhood

The gardens of my childhood, Karl Foerster and a belated homage – when I think of myself as a keen gardener now I wonder why my path to this has not been a direct but a rather winded one, since I could have learned it virtually from the cradle from my almost fanatically gardening parents. Continue reading →

My wife's border - lupins which were of a creamy white not so long ago. Many flowers seem to fall back into their old 'habits' Marital companion planting

Political gardening systems and marital companion planting – from all political systems, monarchy also seems to be best in the garden, provided we are kings or queens ourselves. There is enough oppositional mischief and revolutionary danger from the animal world already, let alone climatic caprices, to allow for democratic antics with liberal or conservative experiments in turn. (Labour is involved in any case.) So I plead for a hereditary iron hand with green fingers and a soft touch. Continue reading →