Villa garden Meerbusch

The Meerbusch Villa Garden was awarded the special prize in the "English Landscape Garden" category in the "Gardens of the Year" competition.

The jury's verdict: "This garden, or actually park, inspires with its generosity and very successful balanced proportions between opulent architecture and surroundings. The timeless, harmonious lines of the design elements and the discreet colouring of flowering shrubs, roses and woody plants in pastel shades correspond to the classical style of the villa. Tall deciduous trees, extensive lawns and invisible borders skilfully emphasise the landscape character of the grounds."

The garden in Meerbusch was created over a period of almost 13 years, during which it was enlarged twice and repeatedly subjected to subtle changes. In 1992, the residential house was built according to the plans of the Hamburg architect Ehrensberger.

The first garden concept was created at the same time according to the plans of the Düsseldorf garden architect Roland Weber. Already in 1996, however, the garden was revised by the Krefeld landscape architect Raitz von Frentz (Section A). Through the later purchase of two neighboring properties in 2005 (Section B) and 2009 (Section C), however, the garden only received the necessary size, which did justice to the proportion and the charisma of the architecture.

The office WKM Landscape Architects from Düsseldorf was commissioned with the combination of all three properties into a uniform garden concept. In the redesign of the garden, it was important to combine the existing character with the new possibilities now arising. These were, on the one hand, the opening up of the borders with new lines of sight and the inclusion of the existing old stock of trees. Through the new planting of trees and shrubs such as rhododendrons, yews and cherry laurels, rock pears Japanese cherries and Chinese dogwood, the edges of the garden were designed in such a way that the view is directed far beyond into the neighbouring gardens and the actual property boundaries can only be guessed at. Conversely, the positioning of new trees such as Scots pines, silver maples, copper beeches, tulip trees and hemlocks also obscured unwanted views.

Water-bound paths as well as lawn paths open up the garden and lead past flowering groups of rhododendrons, azaleas, roses, hydrangeas and large fields of daffodils. A garden pavilion, which was taken over from the neighboring garden, invites you to linger as well as a wooden deck at a natural swimming pond, which also reflects the sky in the garden.

The overall concept is entirely in the tradition of the classical villa and / or English landscape garden. Careful intervention creates a natural beauty and self-evidence, as if the garden had always been there.

The visual relationships between the house and the garden, the play of light and shadow, the experience of closeness and distance and the generosity that allows nature to take possession of the garden again from the edges, gives it its natural beauty, which makes it an experience at all times of the day and year.