Garden Exploration: Wild Beauty in Artist Anne Schwalbe's German Garden

Photography by Claire Cottrell for Gardenista

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. Come with us on a tour.

Yellow goldenrod starts blooming in September.

The exterior of the cottage.

This past summer, Anne converted an existing storage shed into an outhouse and painted the door pale blue-gray.

In the shed is a composting toilet that Anne designed.

A traditional hands-washing system designed from vintage German enamelware.

Before photography, Anne studied German literature and culture.

An old armoire found in the storage shed already painted the unusual russet-orange color.

When Anne moved in, she planted an apple tree, a gingko tree, herbs, and roses.

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