Published on 28 March 2023

Gustav Ammann and the Modern English Garden

View over a lawn of buildings almost completely behind trees and bushes. On the left are black poplar trees. There is a wooden bench under one of the trees. Photo in black and white. The lens didn’t quite cover the picture circle. — View of the garden. Many trees and bushes planted by Ferdinand Vetter. In the left of the picture is the handrail to the Rhine. It was made from a railing that was in Bern Cathedral. Vetter had it put up in 1914. Photographer unknown. — © Federal Office of culture, St George Abbey’s Museum.

View over a lawn of a building with two floors. There is one tree in front of the building. The walls are ivy-clad. The ground-floor windows form a continuous row. On the left is a pavilion-like half-timbered structure. The photo is in black and white. — Many trees and bushes were cut down after the Gottfried Keller foundation bought the site in 1926. The small tower on the annex to the abbot’s flat was removed. The handrail to the Rhine made of old building parts was replaced by iron bars in 1948. Picture taken around 1950, photographer unknown. — © Federal Office of culture, St George Abbey’s Museum.

View from high-up of a garden and monastery buildings. There are plain tiles on the roofs. The walls are ivy-clad. Photo in black and white. — View of the garden from the rector’s house. At the back on the right is the east wing of the monastery, the annex of the abbot's flat is on the left. The garden has many trees and bushes. At the front is a vegetable garden with a well. Photographer unknown. — © Federal Office of culture, St George Abbey’s Museum

View from high-up of a garden and monastery buildings. There are plain tiles on the roofs. The walls are newly plastered. The garden has been newly arranged. Photo in black and white. — The garden by Gustav Ammann from the rector’s house after the renovation of 1952. At the back on the right is the east wing of the monastery, the annex of the abbot's flat is on the left. Many of the trees and bushes have disappeared. The ivy has been removed. At the front is a vegetable garden with a well. Picture in black and white. Unknown photographer. — © Federal Office of culture, St George Abbey’s Museum

Gustav Ammann and the Modern English Garden

The book "The English Flower Garden" was published in 1883. It was written by the English garden designer William Robinson (1835-1939). In his book, the author showed new possibilities of garden design and at the same time explained which forms of design he considered wrong. Thanks to Robinson's clear stance, his book had great success with young gardeners and architects.
For Robinson, a garden should be a small wilderness. He rejected everything that seemed artificial to him. In his gardens there were no geometrically laid out paths, no water features, statues or foreign plants. He preferred native plants that propagated themselves. Roses and clematis were among his favourite plants. He also liked to plant daffodils, tulips and lilies. In other words, flowers that overwinter in a bulb and bloom again the next year. He did not cut the plants into shape and he did not put them in beds. He distributed them in natural-looking groups. Trees and shrubs were to form free-growing groves, flowers were to grow directly from the lawn. Gustav Ammann followed Robinson's ideas with great success.