AS PHILLIP CHANDLER SAW 
THE INTERNATIONAL HORTICULTURAL EXHIBITION 
The keynote to the International Horticultural Exhibition at Hamburg is the emphasis 
upon the relationship of ornamental plant material to the landscape in which it is used. This 
very emphasis upon use and space organization seem even more significant in terms of ulti- 
mate value to the observer than the quality and quantity of plants themselves. Quantity and 
quality are also impressive, in fact superlative, but the skillful execution of an over all plan 
by Landscape Architect Plomin and his capable assistants has presented the public with a 
survey of the art of gardening of our time, the gardens of fifteen nations. These nations are 
Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Eire, France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, 
The Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United States. 
One approaches the grounds along wide, well-groomed streets shaded by ancient 
lime and plane trees, in the midst of one of the most horticulturally rich sections of the con- 
tinent. A level to rolling plain of great fertility is cut by wide and meandering rivers and 
canals and spotted by generous lakes. The climate is high in latitude, and is essentially ma- 
rine, thereby moist and cool, tempered from extremes and favored by long daylight hours 
throughout the summer. The plant materials native and imported suggest a climatic similarity 
to Vancouver, B.C., considerably milder in winter than Berlin which lies inland to the south- 
east. Now a metropolis of some two million, Hamburg centers around a handsome lake, the 
Alster, and a harbor which is really the river Elbe. In three nights of July, 1943, a great por- 
tion of the city was levelled by bombs, but the magnificient section of shops and hotels 
fronting the Alster remained or have been repaired and it is this area with its adjoining 
parks and parkways that is the heart of Hamburg. 
From airport, harbor, railway station and main thorofares one is directed to ''Pflan- 
zen und Blumen" by whimsically clever signboards, exercises in contemporary design, ade- 
quate but unobtrusive. Beyond the Botanic Garden one enters the Exhibition grounds 
through ample gates beneath the flags of the fifteen nations. Inside the atmosphere is def- 
initely that of an exposition, and one is attracted first to the gay and delightful archi- 
tecture of the pavillions, most exciting of which is the steel and glass observation tower, 
from which one may view the entire Exhibition and the city. Other outstanding features 
include the musical fountain—music with water in color; the pipe-and-bowl fountain amid 
a stony brook in the Iris Valley (here in an area of 3,000 square feet, 600 varieties of Iris 
are naturalized, including many new hybrids still virtually unknown to the landscape and am- 
ateur trade); the all-glass Tropical House of ultra contemporary design, beautifully planted 
to rare succulents, the carniverous Nepenthes, Orchids, Bromeliads, and heat-loving large- 
leafed tropicals; a Rose garden of unusual naturalness and charm; the tree nursery island, 
new plastic sculptures on the main avenue, a splendid book pavillion, endless small fountains 
all simple and modern, and acres of water garden. 
The use of water plants, both in and alongside water, is one of the high points of the 
Exhibition. Particularly memorable subjects growing in water are Euphorbia palustris, Acorus 
calamus, Scirpus lacustris (four to five feet), Potentilla (Comarum) palustris, Hydrocharis 
morsus-ranae, Alisma plantago-aquatica, Catabrosa (Glyceria) aquatica, Iris Pseudacorus, 
Glyceria fluitans, and Ranunculus Lingua. Most of these delightful pool and brook plants are 
practically unobtainable in Southern California. 
The most outstanding perennial used in quantity masses is the Delphinium, hundreds and 
thousands over hill and down dale, the unforgetable spires of all the blues of the spectrum. 
One of the most effective out-of-the-ordinary trees put to conspicuous use, particularly by 
Gebruder Mohr of Elmshorn, was the Pterocarya fraxinifolia, an almost-black-barked deci- 
duous subject of great structural value, always branching from ground in multiple trunks, 
the compound leaves suggesting Ailanthus or Phellodendron amurense. A continuous archi- 
tectural feature of charm and informality are walks of decomposed granite (or a similar 
compound) edged with flagstone, flat on the outside and naturally jagged inside. 
Other well used plants conspicuous to Americans are the stately Phellodendron; Robinia 
tortuosa (effective in the landscape exhibit of Lorenz von Ehren of Hamburg-Nienstedten); 
Chamoecyparis nookatensis pendula, an exotic black-green and gray-green weeping conifer 
wisely used alone with rocks and lichens; an endless collection of Mahonia and Berberis and 
Mahoberberis; Lithospermum purpurea-caeruleum; divers grasses and bamboos; Genista and 
Erica by the dozens; and as almost everywhere in Europe, the magnificent bronze-leaved 
Corylus Avellana atropurpurea, a shrubby tree of many climates and uses. 
