Germany’s most famous plant freak

The end of November marked the 50th anniversary of the death of Karl Foerster – one of the defining characters of modern garden culture. An obituary.

50 years ago, on November 27, Karl Foerster (1874-1970), one of the most unique figures in 20th century landscape architecture, died. Politically conservative but adaptable, networked up to the highest levels of society, with neo-romantic preferences and yet a pioneer of a view of the garden that was free of tradition, the plant breeder Foerster remained a kind of offensive ambassador for Flora on earth throughout his life.

Early on, creative minds such as Käthe Kollwitz and Richard Neutra sought him out not only for professional reasons; people were attracted by the spiritual charisma of the pain-stricken outsider. It is difficult to read his emotional aphorisms with any seriousness. At the same time, they are used to promote sales in coffee-table books.

Today, many people, including Piet Oudolf, testify to Foerster’s importance for the further development of the garden. And yet for him, the latter was initially little more than the exhibition space for his “fire mirrors” and “jewel towers” in a rhythmic setting. The truly modern residential garden was created by others, but they were dependent on his very vital selections. In addition, the clarity of color and sharpening of the species-typical overall characteristics that Foerster was striving for allowed him to work differently in terms of design.

Social responsibility

And finally, he expanded the range with low-maintenance species in such a way that the “New Objectivity” became expressive in the garden – for example in the then unusual simplicity of ornamental grasses. But “low-maintenance” is a relative term. What was considered simple in the 1920s compared to the ornamental beds of the imperial era was still considered too elaborate in later decades due to dwindling public funds. Only the new love of perennials in the last two decades – roughly outlined with the formula “Echinacaea between feather grass” – seems to be returning to the plant enthusiasm of the interwar period.

While Foerster dreamed of new discoveries of great “treasures”, today we capture the sensuality of the dwindling ruderal wilderness with steppe perennials or yearn for rurality in the urban environment with wobbly picket fences. The main focus is supposedly on the bees, which are running out of flowers outside the cities. Foerster firmly believed in the social responsibility of the profession and would have wanted to counteract the biological impoverishment of the world in our time through breeding work.

Novel plant images

Almost thirty years ago, Hermann Mattern wrote in memory of him in this magazine (03/1971, p. 80) in keeping with this spirit: A good gardener must “[…] make conscious the childlike belief within him that the world and all the kingdoms of nature belonging to it are incessantly in the process of higher development and that man, as the most intelligent being on earth, can, indeed must, contribute his part to this”. If Foerster were active today, he would probably say goodbye to his water-hungry favorite phlox and dare to create completely new plant images in order to give time a new language.