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    • The stage for the house – the front garden

    The front garden, designed with plants, is an optical highlight for every property, not only in the warm season. With a well-thought-out planting, this plot area becomes an effective presentation area. And this completely naturally and all year round. A combination of perennials, grasses and shrubs forms a perfect stage with added value, explains Peter Berg.

     

    Indicators of the seasons

    Of all the plants, trees and shrubs show us the seasons most clearly. They fulfil important functions at all times. Due to the lack of leaves, they let the full sun through in winter and show us their picturesque bark and structure. In spring their fresh green is a balm for our soul and lets us breathe a sigh of relief at their sight. “In summer they provide shade and reduce the ambient temperature. At the same time they store water and provide moisture,” explains the expert. With the use of mild autumn light and the reduction of photosynthesis, the leaves discolour. Now these power plants reward us with a fireworks display of colour that even surpasses the effect of perennials and grasses in summer.

     

    The slower the development, the more valuable the wood

    It is interesting to note that the slow-growing and particularly valuable woody plants also show special autumn colours. The family of the witch hazel family can be mentioned here as an example and dominates the front garden of Peter Berg. Two amber trees, an ironwood bush and a witch hazel stand here in a small area. This variety is completed by dogwood, girl’s pine and rock pear. “If you have the right shrubs and grasses in your front garden, you will be rewarded with a special fireworks display of colour in autumn,” enthuses the garden designer.

    Japanese maple in front garden absorbing sunlight
    View of a front garden with colorful plants and trees
    Deciduous trees, hedges and plants under a blue sky
    Stairs lead through the colourful front garden up to the house

    Take a look at this project with a living front garden! About the project

    Cracow, Poland: From 18-19 October, Peter Berg was invited as a guest lecturer to the ELCA (European Landscape Contractors Association) conference.

    In his lecture “Nature. Aesthetics. Design.” he spoke about the design elements he uses in his garden projects. Following the Japanese example, he uses natural stone, plants and water for an aesthetic and natural garden design.

    Among the approximately 100 participants were well-known landscape architects, garden designers and students. The encounter with the English garden designer Jo Thompson (Best in Show Chelsea) was a special highlight.

    In addition to the conference with top-class lectures, excursions to important parks and gardens were also on the agenda of the expert audience. Over the years, these excursions have developed friendships with colleagues in many countries, openly communicating and sharing expertise.

    Cracow convinces among other things with good restaurants, much life at the river and an interesting surrounding field, with the proximity to the high Tatra. The city is not too big and does not have the uniform character of many modern cities.

    The front garden must not do any work
    It must be easy to care for and therefore make as little work as possible, until no work at all. Today this is more and more the maxim. Especially in modern new buildings one sees increasingly a stone desert of coarse gravel instead of a front garden designed with plants. This is not good for the eye, the insects or the climate. Garden designer Peter Berg therefore pleads for more naturalness in front of our front doors. Above all, we should use more woody plants that bind the fine dust, produce oxygen and lower the temperature.

    Easy-care aesthetic front garden design convinces
    As an experienced garden designer, Peter Berg knows that a natural front garden created with planning requires little maintenance, but offers many advantages. A well thought-out combination of structure-giving natural stone with selected, long-lived plants considerably reduces the maintenance effort. At the same time however thereby an ecologically valuable range is created, from which humans, as well as nature profit. Also the optics is substantially more convincing and raises at the same time the value of the entire real estate.

    Foils and gravel are no problem solvers
    If you want to have an ecological and natural garden, an understanding of nature is indispensable. Unfortunately, this is becoming increasingly rare today. Especially in the front garden area the large area use of gravel is preferred. This testifies to an unnatural relationship to “cleanliness” and the belief that one would never have work like this again. However, this is a deceptive conclusion. “Nature always seeks its way,” says Peter Berg. Even supposedly dense foils and heavy rocks do not help. An entry of weeds from the environment cannot be avoided, and when trying to remove them, one inevitably gets stuck in the foils.

    Trees improve the climate
    Especially in our ever warmer climate and summer temperatures approaching 40 degrees, large deciduous trees are particularly important. They provide protection for humans and animals from increasingly intense solar radiation. At the same time, they are real climate-improvers. With their foliage they create a light shade and contribute to cooling the environment. The evaporation of water has an extremely positive influence on the environment, which also benefits other plants. In addition, woody plants absorb CO2 from the air and give us oxygen. Even fine dust, which now pollutes not only large cities, is absorbed by them.

    In Berg’s front garden alone, you can already see five different types of trees and shrubs that adorn it with their lush greenery. Attractive grasses and shrubs are planted underneath. “In nature, every piece of soil is covered with plants,” explains the expert. “There is undesirable vegetation only if it is not planted closed or the plants do not fit together.

    Woods, shrubs and grasses offer birds and insects an ideal habitat, improve our climate and create a piece of nature in our private sphere – and this also includes the front garden.

     

     

    The garden designer Peter Berg from Sinzig shows in a workshop how dry walls are created

    Sinzig. “The most important part of my training is my own garden, which has always been my experimental field, source of inspiration and strength,” says Peter Berg. The Sinziger is a garden designer known far beyond the borders. He is regarded as an undisputed master of the modern European rock garden, as an experienced expert who juggles with rock and leaves plenty of room for the world of plants.

    Nature, aesthetics, design are the world of the 62-year-old garden designer, who combines rough stone work with filigree planting techniques. Throughout Europe, Berg is on the move to pass on his expertise, which has long since penetrated the furthest corners of the continent. Now he invited them to his home. A five-day workshop was held in his home garden. Landscapers from Ireland, Austria, Northern Germany, Saxony and Bavaria came to learn in practice and theory how stone masterpieces can be created on a slope.

    Peter Berg and his team of twelve had meticulously prepared the seminar. After all, the aim was not only to teach 18 workshop participants something, but also to make their stay in Westum pleasant. Some garden professionals came with basic knowledge and wanted to develop professionally, others had travelled privately to learn something for their own garden design.

    Berg has laid out seven terraces on its 3000 square metre hillside property, which are connected by more than one hundred steps. Wine once grew there, today there are small viewing plateaus on the slope, seating areas with shelters, fireplaces, vegetable gardens and flower beds. Perennials and grasses provide additional eye-catchers.

    The difference in height between Berg’s house and the end of the property is 40 metres. It takes a certain amount of courage to design such a site as a garden. For more than three decades, Berg has been active on his local mountain. Especially complex: stabilizing the soil.

    The man from Sinzig, who laid the ground by hand at the Federal Horticultural Show in Koblenz or at the NRW State Horticultural Show in Zülpich and was also responsible for the Japanese garden landscape at the Arp Museum, uses graywacke and slate from the Moselle to build dry walls that are supposed to withstand the earth’s masses. These walls are up to one meter thick. The stones are piled up artfully, gaps are closed with native plants. In the quarry, Berg chooses the material that he will later use. Layer by layer is placed on top of each other, stone by stone is interlocked.

    Berg shows his guests how this works in the workshop. One is visibly impressed there. It is hammered, cut to size, stacked and wrought. Berg gives tips, points out mistakes and gives advice on how to create a safe dry wall that is not threatened by collapse. “You only learn when you practice,” he says to the course participants, who gathered on one of the many viewing platforms after work to toast to what they had learned: Peter Berg had invited to the wine tasting.

    Article in the General-Anzeiger, Friday, July 5, 2019
    Author: Victor Francke / Photos: Gausmann

     

    This year’s German economic competition “Grand Prix of Medium-Sized Businesses”, organized by the Oskar Patzelt Foundation in Leipzig, has the motto “Sustainable management”.
    The non-prized competition has been held since 1994 and is taking place for the 25th time this year. Of the 5,399 previously nominated small and medium-sized companies, 758 made it to the second round on the so-called jury list and thus qualified for the jury’s decision. The company GartenLandschaft Berg from Sinzig-Westum is one of them.
    The motivation of sustainable management is firmly anchored in its corporate philosophy and contributes from the outset to the economic success of the gardening and landscaping business. In the last six years alone, long-lived grasses and shrubs have been planted on approx. 30,000 square metres. In addition approx. 12,000 to 15,000 shrubs and woody plants. This alone is an enormous contribution to species diversity in the insect and bird world.
    Peter Berg also attaches great importance to a high quality standard in all areas of the company: “As a small manufactory, we have always dealt with quality management. From Prof. Dr. Jörg Knoblauch, who has won the Ludwig-Ehrhard-Prize with his company Drillbox, we have learned to constantly work on improvement”, the managing director states.
    A total of 12 regional juries will decide in the coming weeks who will be honoured as a finalist, as a prizewinner or with a special prize. It remains exciting. But regardless of the outcome of the competition “Grand Prix of Medium-Sized Businesses” – GartenLandschaft Berg continues to devote all its passion to the topic of sustainability and the connection between man and nature in aesthetic design.

    With the arrival of spring, the passion to create and shape awakens in every garden lover. Who is not happy about a little inspiration? Or a lot of inspiration.not happy about a little inspiration? Or a lot of inspiration.That’s why we’re giving away 3 copies of Peter Berg’s latest book “Natur. Aesthetics. Design”.

    To take part in the raffle:

    Closing date: Monday, 15.04.19 – 9:00 am – CET.

    Among all those who link and comment on the above mentioned article on instagram, we will determine the 3 winners by drawing lots on Monday, 15.04.2019. The winners will be informed by private message and announced on Instagram.

    Conditions of entry see link in Bio: The competition is not related to Instagram and is in no way sponsored, supported or organized by Instagram. Participation in the contest is subject to the terms and conditions set forth herein. By participating, the entrant expressly acknowledges these terms and conditions. As far as personal data of participants are collected in the context of the competition, these will be collected, processed and used by the organizer exclusively for the purpose of carrying out the competition, and deleted after the end of the competition. The participant expressly agrees to this.

    …is the citeria, which most garden owners or those, who want to become one, value highly. Whoever has the opportunity here in Germany wants to own a piece of nature, to enjoy a place “outside”. But it should not do any work, since one would like to recover after the deed is done. But in England this is different. People there love gardening and can obviously relax by caring for their beds and cutting their roses. “In this country the value of gardening as a balance to everyday life is still too little recognised”, garden designer Peter Berg has observed.

    A garden is a piece of living nature that cannot do without a certain amount of care. An easy-care design is possible, as Peter Berg has already shown in countless projects, but never a carefree one. “It is always a pity when customers are given false promises,” explains Berg. Even on surfaces that have been covered with foil and gravel, nature manages to reconquer them after not too long. Wild herbs are always brought in from the surrounding land or landscape and blossom. Attempts to remove them here often end with the destruction of the foil. Berg recommends gravel surfaces – then with an underlying gravel layer – only for parking spaces or garage entrances.

    Blooming gardens are much more pleasing to the eye, but require a well thought-out concept. If you work sustainably, with long-lasting shrubs and grasses and clear separation of different areas by walls or borders, you get a functioning garden. Generously sized grass-perennial areas have a major maintenance advantage over small lawns. Once a year they are cut down and a little weed plucked in between. The laborious weekly mowing does not take place.

    A further aspect of the easy-care design is the slowly growing large trees and shrubs. They cover large areas, provide shade and even become more valuable over time. Explosively growing woody plants are not advisable, as the maintenance effort is often considerably higher. The correct location as well as a professional cut are to be considered absolutely. Otherwise the woody plants will grow back uncontrollably.

    In order to keep the expenditure low two things are important. Pluck weeds before it sprouts and trim hedges once or twice a year and cut trees. “It’s all a matter of adjustment,” says Berg. “I’d rather spend two hours in the garden than one hour in the gym.” A statement worth thinking about.

    Let yourself be inspired by our loving private garden projects!

    One topic that is now becoming increasingly important is the so-called “forest bathing”. This means consciously staying in the forest in order to specifically influence health and mind. In Japan, this has been scientifically investigated for decades. Research has shown that “Shinrin Yoku” or “Forest Therapy” has a positive influence on stress factors, the immune system up to slowed tumor growth.

    In Germany, people are now led into the forest in groups as well. The aim is to absorb nature with all our senses. To feel the power of a tree and the calm that it emmits or to listen to the sound of a stream. The essential oils produced by the trees, the terpenes, cause the increased production of white blood cells in our body. Germs and cancer cells are combated. Fungal spores and soil bacteria, which are absorbed via the air, additionally strengthen our immune system.

    A good approach. But who has the possibility to go for a walk in the forest every day as advised? This is where your own garden comes into play. “Gardens are retreats in an increasingly hectic world,” notes Peter Berg. After an exhausting everyday life, you long for peace and relaxation. A place in the house’s own green is ideal. Properly laid out, the garden is a real alternative to the forest. The right colour concept is important for the design. “My colour design is based on the colours that are most frequently given by nature,” explains Berg. Green in combination with the colours of the sky – white, grey, blue – give the eye oft he beholder the most peace of mind. A harmonious overall picture can only be captured if strong contrasts are avoided.

    If the design is supplemented by skilfully used woody plants you have a natural shade dispenser at the resting place as well as the calming and invigorating effect of the trees. If there is still the possibility of a flowing or splashing water element, nothing stands in the way of deep relaxation.

    Let yourself be inspired, for example by this wonderful private garden on the Moselle.

    “Taste is the art of understanding little things.” (Jean-Jacques Rousseau)

    Next week the 28th Langenloiser Staudentage will take place in Austria. Peter Berg is very much looking forward to participating as a speaker. Further information and details

     

    For the garden designer Peter Berg the turn of the year was a time of reflection on the past 12 months and, at the same time, of focusing on what lies ahead of him in the coming year. New plans take shape and therefore he consciously seeks the inspiration he finds outside: “The closer you are to nature, the more harmonious the result of your own work becomes”.

    He has also used the quiet time between the years to intensively study the works of Prince Pückler Muskau, Russell Page and Capability Brown. Peter Berg not only wants to design simple house gardens, but also to create a lasting legacy. We can look forward to the projects that will come into being in 2019!