Ongoing, the European Garden Book Award and the European Garden Photo Award were presented by Baron and Baroness Süsskind. A total of over 120 books have been submitted by the publishers and were evaluated by the jury at the previous jury meeting.
Additionally, the best European garden photos, garden blogs and garden podcasts were selected. Plus, with the premium award for European garden books, castle Dennenlohe honors exceptional literary achievements in the field of horticulture and garden culture.
The German and European Garden Book Award is intended as an award for authors who, through their publications, have enhanced the garden as well as plant knowledge of their interested readers in an extraordinary way.
The German Garden Book Award supports the winners with high cash prizes of 12,500 Euros.
The best “European Garden Book 2021” was “Naturalistic Planting Design”/Naturalistische Gartengestaltung by Nigel Dunnett.
In detail, Nigel Dunnetts gardens and landscapes have lifted the spirits of city dwellers for decades. They are achingly beautiful, motivating places that resonate with the energy of the natural world and urge us to take a moment of consideration. But how does he achieve these plantings with their successional waves of colorful perennials, elegant grasses, and pollinators at work with so few demands on irrigation and other natural resources?
In this particular winning book of 2021, he shares his inspiration, philosophy and working methods. Lastly, he relates his own special style of naturalistic planting in historical context and teaches us how to read wild plant communities and to better understand how they behave in garden situations.
Nigel shares his plant selection, which includes trees and shrubs as well as perennial and annual meadow plants and implementation techniques in a neat planting design toolkit. Overall, it is an extremely good book and a well deserved first place.
Second best European Garden Book is “A year in my garden” by Jaqueline van der Kloet/GU Verlag and Anne C. Repnow with “Some Snowdrops” from Prinz5 Verlag won the third place.
You find all winners and a personal statement of Nigel Dunnett on www.gardenbookaward.com or on youtube: European Garden Book Award 2021.