Schachen Alpine Garden, Germany

[Philippe]

Hi,

If not known yet, it will be done after having cliked

http://www.alsacephotos.fr/srgs/schachen/schachen.htm

And is certainly a place to visit in July!

Philippe

[mark smyth]

Philippe, I really like your style of photography

[ashley]

Philippe, I really like your style of photography

Magnificent.

[hadacekf]

Super photos, thank you.

[Hans J]

Phillipe ,

I have visit before many years this garden - we made a walk from Elmau to the hunting castle of King Ludwig II ....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King%27s_House_on_Schachen

Regards
Hans

[Luc Gilgemyn]

I can only add to the praises above, Philippe !!

Wonderful pictures !!! 

[cohan]

beautiful images of what seems like a very nice garden! looking forward to the next installment..

[Paul T]

Wow, Philippe.  Beautiful pics of a gorgeous place, by the look of it.  And those wonderful Primulas!! 

Thanks so much for sharing.

[Philippe]

Hi
 
Here are now some pics of landscapes and native flora around the garden ( South Bavaria, Alps), at altitudes between 1800 and 2000m.asl.

Pic 1: At the Schachengrund, under the garden. Situated on the northern slope of the ridge above. A place of wonder! Meadows covered with beautiful plants and flowers. The kind of places we would like to have in
our rock gardens...
Because of the configuration of this place, the tumbling water, when raining, rushes from the rocks above to form a temporary furious torrent that runs far away, depending on the rain intensity, carrying more or less small
and bigger stones. Between those downpours, the vegetation sometimes manages to settle again in the dried bed of the flow: linaria alpina, doronicum grandiflorum, and many others. It's a good place to see and to
observe how plants communities form along the years, before everything is washed away again.
On the sides of those temporary water-stones torrents the soil becomes much more stable, and we find here a profusion of alpine meadows plants: gentiana bavarica, gentiana clusii, cirsium spinosissimum, androsace
villosa and dryas octopetala on the drier places, anthyllis vulneraria, and so on...
 

 
Pic 2: Nigritella nigra is part of these alpine meadows. It could be better named rubra, as I personally find its red opened flowers much more attractive than the ones black that aren't blooming yet. Don't we forget the
fact that the flowers are fragrant, that it is an orchid, and it becomes a high desirable plant for the rock garden, though probably not easily to please.

Pic 3: Androsace villosa. There were hundreds of it, here and there. I always wonder how do such tiny plants manage to survive amongst bigger ones and grasses, but it works! And it makes such a beautiful scene.

Pic 4: Dryas octopetala. It was the perfect time to see its flowering

Pic 5: Linaria alpina. The jewel of stony areas. I really loved to see it grow here over and under the white stones. It looks so fragile and is in fact easily torn by the moving stones or washed away by the torrent which
may flow again one day, but it is its environment, it needs such "violence" to spread around, and is simply lost if the soil becomes more stable and more favourable to more lasting plants-associations.
Of course, such a radical treatment isn't essential in the garden, as we are the ones that care for its well-being by taking away every possible competition. It then only need a very coarsely gritty soil that doesn't dry out
completely, and the appropriate climate, which is not always the easiest thing...

Pic 6: Thlaspi rotundifolium. Another inhabitant of mobile screes. It won't also tolerate too much competition in culture, and is looking in any case best when planted between rocks.

Pic 7: Gentiana clusii. In this limestone area, the counterpart of G.kochiana, which avoids calcareous soils

Pic 8: Rhododendron hirsutum. As for the gentian above, rhododendron hirsutum is to find preferably over limestone, whereas the "similar" R.ferrugineum grows on acidic soil in the wild. In my garden acidic soil, I find
R.hirsutum to grow with difficulty, but even in the wild it is never or seldom as beautiful as R.ferrugineum, which is more vigorous.

Pic 9: Doronicum grandiflorum

Pic 10: Tofieldia pusilla

 

[Philippe]

Higher up, at about 2000m.

Pic 1: GENTIANA bavarica was blooming everywhere you looked around.

 
Pic 2: PETROCALLIS pyrenaica. Hanging over the rocks.

 
Pic 3: RANUNCULUS alpestris. Near a refreshing snowpatch I found some usually early spring flowers, in the middle of the summer. The melting snow provided regular cold water supply, what also pleased:


Pic 4: SOLDANELLA alpina, and...


Pic 5: SOLDANELLA pusilla...


Pic 6: Both growing side by side, a wonderful sight!

Pic 7: SAXIFRAGA aizoides, in its beautiful red-orange variant

 
Pic 8,9,10: SILENE acaulis. Of course! Always deserving time to sit down near it, contemplating it, and photographing it!

 

 

 

 

 

[Philippe]

Some other views to finish

Pic 1: PEDICULARIS rostrato-capitata


PIC 2 : AQUILEGIA atrata, growing much lower, close to the forest.


PIC 3: Sunset over the bavarian Alps. The two tops right in the middle of the pic are part of the Wettersteingebirge, a group which includes the highest summit of Germany, Zugspitze, 2962m asl ( that we don't see on
this pic)


Pic 4: A view towards Austria to the south. Such cliffs could well have been home for Androsace helvetica, but I didn't see anything like this here.


Pic 5: Weather begins to turn...

 
Pic 6:..no wish to get surprised by a thunderstorm over there, which can come very quickly here.

[Rob]

Thank you for adding all these photos

Sunset pics are very popular, but I really like PIC 3: Sunset over the bavarian Alps. It stands out from the usual pictures.

[cohan]

wonderful! great plants, and the additional habitat notes are really helpful and interesting, too..
lots of beauties, but very interesting to see the orange S aizoides-i've only seen yellow in the mts here (not that i have seen it in many places..)

[tonyg]

Beautifully photographed, interesting to see and learn about.  Thanks for sharing your discoveries.

[astragalus]

Wonderful pictures, thank you for sharing.  Re: Sax. aizoides.  In the Dolomites you can see this - yellow with so many orange spots that from a little distance it appears to be a soft orange color.