Lively Gardens in Winter

Iris Ney

The passion for gardens and plants runs like a thread through my life. Still studying food chemistry at the University of Würzburg, botany has remained my favourite subject with lectures and practical courses. I started my professional career as an assistant laboratory manager in chemical analysis for a well-known manufacturer of writing instruments, then as a sales engineer in the water treatment industry. In the winter of 2006 I moved to Bonn to turn my vocation into a profession. Since 2000, I have been a passionate gardener in my own gardens, gaining practical experience and in-depth knowledge of plants and their areas of life. Numerous excursions to natural sites have helped me, also abroad. But "experiences" in my own garden are very fun and very instructive. I encountered the first failures in the garden by reading increasingly sophisticated specialist literature, visiting botanical gardens, landscape parks and private gardens, as well as instructive participation and later moderation in the Internet garden-pure garden forum . For many years I have been a member of the German Arboretum eV, the German Dendrology Society, the Society of Perennial Friends eV as well as the Royal Horicultural Society RHS and the Alpine Garden Society in personal contact with experienced and passionate nurseries, perennial gardeners, landscape architects and other "Green Branch" specialists. Before becoming independent as a garden designer, I worked for almost five months in the gardens of Beth Chatto and the perennial nursery connected to it. Mrs Beth Chatto is one of the most important garden personalities of our time, her gardens near Colchester are among the most famous perennial gardens in England. Many of Beth Chatto's popular specialist books have also been published in German. In my spare time since 2007 I have worked time and again in the rare plant nursery Monksilver Nursery of plant specialist and organiser of the legendary Galanthus Gala (Snowdrop Days) Joe Sharman near Cambridge, UK. In the meantime, I no longer live in the Rhineland, but since the end of 2013 in Waldems-Reichenbach, a small town in the beautiful district of Rheingau-Taunus, near Bad Homburg, Frankfurt, Idstein, Königstein and Wiesbaden. It is clear that my own garden still has to grow and flourish as I imagined it would. Since I would also like to do the stonework myself and without mechanical help, it will take a lot of time! But I was able to achieve some things; So now I can arrive at my sister's apartment with dry feet - using a so-called "wild dressing" made of completely different natural stone (leftovers). This leads to an at least equally wild planting of many ornamental perennials, herbs, woody plants and flower bulbs. In a way - I think - it suits me.