The screeching sound of high-horsepower chainsaws can be heard more and more often in Germany’s historic parks. Climate change is taking a massive toll on the old stocks. Sick or already dead giant trees, some of which were planted during the German Empire and survived two world wars, are being felled in rows. In Saxony’s state gardens, nine trees had to be cut down in 2019, and by 2023 there were already 390. The Prince Pückler Museum Foundation has also been counting precisely in the Branitz park landscape near Cottbus, which now covers 620 hectares, in recent years. It owns around 25,000 park trees and 5,000 forest trees. On average, between 40 and 50 specimens of all ages are removed each year. In the climatic annus horribilis of 2011, which was characterized by extreme weather, 510 oaks had to be felled! Even if the worst damage remains hidden from the 400,000 or so visitors who usually visit the park with its thirty buildings, eight lakes and almost three dozen bridges throughout the year, the future does not bode well. The problem of how to deal with the tree population in a historical context is not getting worse from generation to generation, but from year to year.
Oasis in the desert
Prince Hermann von Pückler-Muskau’s heart would bleed if he knew about the condition of his beloved trees. In 1845, the eccentric garden designer had to sell his inherited estate of Muskau in Upper Lusatia; the lavish design of the park there had brought him into financial difficulties. But the economic crisis did not mean the end of his passion for gardening. Fortunately, he still owned the Branitz estate, more modest than the enormous Muskau Garden Kingdom, but a welcome place to create a romantically inspired palace park. However, the conditions were less favorable: sandy soil and an empty, waterless field awaited him. Pückler, who dreamed of an “oasis in the desert”, did not let himself be discouraged. But his life slipped away in his hands: Born in 1785, he was now sixty years old.
Garden-loving English
Nonetheless, complex modelling of the terrain was carried out with a view to the future, numerous lakes and watercourses were created thanks to the high groundwater level, and more than 100,000 trees were planted. To get a quick impression of the spatial layout, Pückler, to the astonishment of some contemporaries, had eight, twelve, even fifteen metre tall trees brought in from the surrounding area on a huge horse-drawn cart. The English, who were enthusiastic about gardening, had shown how to transplant large trees; Pückler had already tried it out in Muskau, but now several hundred specimens were systematically brought in from a wide area. Before they were transplanted to their final location, they spent a few years in the “Tree University” founded in 1846 to adapt, a school for adult trees in the palace gardens. Linden trees, beeches and oaks, ash trees, alders, chestnuts and birches, but also robinias and poplars were then planted in the park in such a way that they unfolded their effect either as solitary trees or in groups, structuring the space and directing the viewer’s gaze.
Phenomenal landscape park: View of the Pückler Park Branitzdpa
All tree species that could thrive in a temperate climate were used. Even after Pückler’s death and into the 20th century, the Tree University cultivated trees that had adapted to the barren soil of Lusatia and were then planted for the historic park. After 1945, it was closed down as part of an agricultural production cooperative, but in 2011 it was reopened at its original location by the Pückler Foundation, which was founded immediately after reunification. The dramatic consequences of global warming now had to be considered. Since then, the focus has been on young, adaptable trees that grow well in sandy soil and are used for replanting. But the old trees in the park continue to suffer from extreme heat and persistent drought. They are more susceptible to disease and pests. Alternative tree species that can better withstand the effects of climate change are therefore an important issue. Instead of the German pedunculate oak (Quercus robur), the sub-Mediterranean Turkey oak (Quercus cerris) is more likely to be sustainable. In the 2022/2023 planting season, 130 trees from the park’s own tree nursery in Branitz were actually planted, including 30 exotic varieties. Their growth rate in the park is 90 to 95%; Pückler could once only dream of such a value.
Groundbreaking project
In 2021, a new era began with the New Branitz Tree University in the outdoor park of the historic garden landscape. A former large-scale nursery was initially demolished to create a sustainable cultivation area on almost thirteen hectares to be used for the propagation and cultivation of woody plants. In a first step, greenhouses, tree nursery quarters, cultivation areas, experimental plantings, rainwater retention and a gene bank for historic varieties will be created. Funded with five and a half million euros from public funds until 2025, the largest model project for the preservation of historic gardens in the face of global warming in Germany is being realized here. It is trend-setting far beyond national borders. The new tree nursery can identify and cultivate woody plants that can cope better with the rapidly changing climatic conditions. Similar projects are already in the pipeline in Potsdam and Schwetzingen.
Nature, designed as a cultural asset: the Branitz Park in Cottbus. In the “Ministry of Construction” once founded here by Prince Pückler, more climate-resilient park trees are to be grown.picture alliance/dpa
The aim is to find “trees of the future in times of drought, heat and extreme weather events” that will secure Branitz as a green refuge for future generations. At the same time, the appearance of the garden monument must be preserved. Growth, leaf shape and arrangement must match the historical image of the park that Prince Pückler created.
The real challenge here is to bring together climate and environmental protection, changing conditions of use, and garden and monument preservation. In the future, it will no longer be enough to concentrate solely on the original tree species. Alternatives from comparable climatic regions will have to be included; if this is unsuccessful, new climate-resilient species must be planted. This in no way means that the historical value of the garden monument is lost. Because its specific materiality, or more precisely its liveliness, necessarily implies that no historical ideal state can be preserved or reproduced over time, but that the natural work of art must be further developed in constant engagement with the changing ecological and social framework conditions. This is the only way that garden monument preservation can meet the claim that Pückler set out to it: “It is the freedom of the trees that we long for.”
