German artist Anne Schwalbe is fascinated with flowers. And elderberries and nettles and meadows and light. She photographs them all in her 2-and-a-half acre garden. Her house, an old cottage that once belonged to a stove maker, is near the river Elbe in the Sachsen-Anhalt region between Berlin and Hamburg.
Admittedly, Anne has done more to the garden than she has to the house with planting and cultivating on constant rotation. When she bought the property, she had three untended poplar trees removed (to bring in the sunlight) and enlisted friends and family to tend to things like “leftover bicycles and stuff underneath a blackberry hedge,” she says. Anne splits her time between Berlin and the cottage (it doesn’t yet have hot water or a modern toilet), but plans to one day live there full-time. For now, she comes when she can to photograph the garden, host dinners, and battle the “slug storm.”
Photography by Claire Cottrell for Gardenista.
N.B.: This post has been updated with new links; it was first published October 2017.
For more on Anne and her photography, visit her portfolio, check out her Instagram feed (@anneschwalbe), or go to Galerie f 5,6 in Munich where she’s represented.
For more on gardens in Germany, see:
- 10 Garden Ideas to Steal from Germany
- War of the Roses: Preserving Germany’s Ancient Blooms
- Garden Visit: At Home with Katrin Scharl in Brandenburg, Germany
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