Theodor II. Nietner

Theodor II. Nietner (photo taken around 1870)

Theodor Carl Gustav Nietner , called Theodor II. Nietner (born September 7, 1823 in Paretz or Potsdam , Sanssouci , † October 13, 1894 in Potsdam) was a royal court gardener in Potsdam.

Live and act

House garden for Max Sabersky in Seehof , in "German Garden".

Situation plan (executed gardens on the Gütergotz manor near Potsdam) in " Schmidlin's garden book".

Design of the garden at the Villa Liegnitz in the “Horticultural Sketch Book”.

Theodor Nietner came from a gardening family who had been in the royal Prussian court garden service since the time of Frederick II . Theodor II was the first-born son of the court gardener in Paretz Palace , later in Niederschönhausen , Theodor Eduard Nietner, called Theodor I, and Charlotte Luise Albertine, called Berta, née Sello , daughter of the court gardener Ludwig Sello . His horticultural training began in 1841 in the terrace area of the Sanssouci Park , which was administered by his uncle, the court gardener Hermann Sello . In addition, he visited the Royal Gardening College in Schöneberg and Potsdam as a trainee , where, among other things, Gustav Meyer taught him how to draw plans. After completing his apprenticeship, Nietner completed his military service in Brandenburg an der Havel in 1843 and in 1845 took part in natural science lectures at the University of Berlin as a guest student . This was followed by an assistant job under the botanist Peter Carl Bouché in the Berlin Botanical Garden from 1846 to 1848 . During this time he passed the examination to become senior assistants (journeyman) in 1847.

After participating in the Schleswig-Holstein War in 1849, he began his journeyman migration that same year. A short stay with the Belgian gardener Lambert Jacob-Makoy (1790–1873) in Liège was followed by a job in the then Europe-wide known and important commercial gardening of the botanist Louis Benoît van Houtte in Gentbrugge, who entrusted him with the management of the warm houses . An excursion to the tropics to collect plants failed, so Nietner went to England in 1850. There he was employed from March to December at Low's Clapton Nursery in what is now the London Borough of Hackney , where he got to know the gardens in and around London.

The course of the Schleswig-Holstein War led to the renewed mobilization of the Prussian army in late autumn 1850, so that Nietner had to end his wandering and returned via Hamburg. In Potsdam he was given the management of the dairy tree nursery in 1851 by the director of the royal gardening school at the wildlife park near Potsdam and the state tree nursery , gardening director Peter Joseph Lenné . In close cooperation, Nietner experimented with him “in the areas of the refinement of special trees, the propagation of conifers by cuttings and the use of artificial soil heat in the propagation of trees. Lenné gave him a brilliant report on this. ”In 1853 he was then given the management of part of the royal state tree nursery at the New Palais .

In 1860 Nietner was assigned a senior assistant position in the New Garden , which the court gardener Ludwig Mayer, known as Louis Mayer (1804–1876), administered from the same year. Here he lived with his family in the so-called "Green House". In 1861 Theodor II. Nietner went to Koblenz for the “first attack on the Rhine facilities there [designed by Lenné] , where […] the military authorities […] with the greatest willingness transferred helpers to lay out paths and move older trees”.

In addition to his work for the Prussian royal family, Nietner also took on various private commissions in the 1870s and designed gardens for wealthy citizens. His work included the manor park in Seehof , a current district of Teltow , for the merchant Max Sabersky , the manor park of the banker Julius Leopold Schwabach in Kerzendorf and the castle park in Gütergotz , today Güterfelde , of the banker Gerson von Bleichröder

In 1865, in the office of court gardener, the park at Potsdamer Pfingstberg , also designed by Lenné, and the orangery in the New Garden were subordinated to him. In 1868 he was transferred to Sanssouci in the Charlottenhof section of the park , where he and his family moved into the gardener's house of the Roman baths . However, Nietner was only given sole management of the area in 1869 after the death of court gardener Julius Hermann Morsch (1809–1869). At the same time, he was entrusted with the duties of castellan on a part-time basis . In his 11-year activity "he [there] had to clear out the groups of trees that had developed over the past 40 years and release the excellent specimens." As the successor to the late Julius Ferdinand Michaelis (1818–1878), Nietner moved to the area in the New Garden in 1878 which has also owned the pleasure garden at the Potsdam City Palace since 1807 . “Here he was granted the opportunity to create a downright delightful, flower-adorned environment [...] with the new flower parterre at the Marble Palace and the creation of the small, reserved areas close by. The rose garden in front of the orangery = building of the New Garden was also converted under Nietner's direction and provided with its arcades that border it on the sides. "

He published the rose garden in 1881 with a plan and description in the horticultural sketchbook , which Nietner published from 1878 to 1882. The booklets, based on the model of the architectural sketchbook , contained not only their own designs, but also historical and contemporary works by colleagues from home and abroad. The last, independently published booklet with the title The Royal Gardens in Potsdam: Ten collotype images of outstandingly beautiful points appeared in 1882 without text as a pure picture book with chromolithographic plates. In 1880 Nietner dedicated the book The Rose - Its History, Species, Culture and Uses […], bound in artificial leather with gold embossing, to Crown Princess Victoria , who herself dealt with garden design . In its time it became “the standard work of German rose literature” and was considered the “largest German rose book of the 19th century”. The manual, illustrated with 106 woodcuts and 12 color plates based on watercolors by the painter Maria Endell , covered all areas of rose growing. In the fourth edition of Schmidlin's garden book published in 1822 , which Nietner had revised together with Theodor Rümpler, Secretary General of the Horticultural Association in Erfurt, he published drafts of private gardens. Likewise in 1880 in the German Garden . In addition, Nietner was for many years a member of the Association for the Promotion of Horticulture in the Royal Prussian States , in short "Berlin Horticultural Association", for several years chairman of the Potsdam Horticultural Association and of the Association of German Garden Artists . In 1888 he was given the honorable title of “Oberhofgärtner”, which, however, had no practical significance.

One of his last works was probably the horticultural design between the New Garden and the Glienicke Bridge nearby naval base Kongsnæs . Since Nietner could no longer hold the post for health reasons, called Wilhelm II. 1893 previously to his mother, the former Empress Victoria , in Kronberg Castle Friedrichshof head gardener working Max Hoppe (1854-1906) in the garden area, although Nietners son Kurt on the place hoped. "It seems that Wilhelm II had learned from his mother when it came to gardening and continued the modernization of the Potsdam gardens in her sense." On February 22, 1893, he was awarded the Prussian Order of the Crown, 3rd class, for his services .

With Theodor II Nietner, the last important Potsdam court gardener from the Peter Joseph Lenné era retired. After his retirement he moved to Albrechtstrasse, today Am Neuen Garten, where he died a year later. Nietner was buried in the so-called Sello cemetery, part of the Bornstedt cemetery . In the obituary written by Heinrich Fintelmann in 1894 in the Zeitschrift für Gartenbau und Gartenkunst , the gardening inspector praised Nietner's “love and talent for wood carving and his rare ingenuity for setting up arcades and landscaping motifs, [...] to create a mediating relationship to plants around buildings and parts of buildings To give surroundings […] ”. Fintelmann also emphasizes his "functional and space-saving arrangement of greenhouses and plant-based wintering rooms [], which Theodor Nietner devised and produced, [and which] have become proverbial in horticultural circles."

family

Theodor II Nietner married Dorothea Susanna, known as Susette, Burghalter (1832–1930), the daughter of the Potsdam brewery owner Gustav Adolf Burghalter. With her he had two sons, Johannes , who was born in 1855 and later became chief medical officer, and Kurt , who was born in 1859, who followed in his father's footsteps and learned the gardening trade. He was later the last royal court gardener in Babelsberg Park .

Publications

The rose - its history, species, culture and use along with a directory of five thousand described garden roses. Berlin 1880
Schmidlin's garden book: Practical instructions for creating and ordering house and commercial gardens, together with a description and cultivation instructions for the trees, shrubs, flowers and useful plants that are most suitable for this. 4th edition, Berlin 1877 (together with Theodor Rümpler)
The sewage fields of the city of Berlin near Osdorf. In: Hamburger Garten- und Blumenzeitung, issue 32, 1876
Historical information about the vine in the Mark Brandenburg. In: Der Deutsche Garten 1, 1878
Horticultural Sketch Book. Berlin 1878–1882 (6 issues)
Fixes for the landscaper. In: German Garden 1, 1880
The royal gardens in Potsdam: ten collotype images of superbly beautiful points. Berlin 1882
The rose garden of Her Imperial and Royal Highness the Crown Princess at the new Palace in Potsdam. In: Garten-Zeitung, 1, 1882
A new rose "Prinzess Wilhelm von Prussen". In: Garten-Zeitung, 2, 1883

literature

Heinrich Fintelmann: A picture of Theodor Nietner's life. The royal court gardener in the New Garden near Potsdam. Obituary in: magazine for horticulture and garden art. Vol. 12, issue 49, Berlin 1894, p. 389f
Foundation Prussian Palaces and Gardens Berlin-Brandenburg (Ed.): Nothing thrives without care. The Potsdam park landscape and its gardeners. Exhibition catalog, Potsdam 2001, p. 304ff
Foundation Prussian Palaces and Gardens Berlin-Brandenburg (Ed.): Prussian Green. Court gardener in Brandenburg-Prussia. Henschel, Potsdam 2004, ISBN 3-89487-489-9 , p. 327f

Web links

Commons : Theodor II. Nietner - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

↑ To distinguish it from his father of the same name, the Potsdam gardeners added a Roman two to his name. Compare Michael Seiler: Nothing thrives without care. S. 304. This marking is also common in today's literature.
^ Heinrich Fintelmann, obituary in the "Zeitschrift für Gartenbau und Gartenkunst", issue 49, p. 389.
↑ ^a ^b ^c Michael Seiler: Nothing thrives without care. P. 304.
↑ ^a ^b Prussian Green, p. 327.
↑ Congratulatory certificate on the 50th anniversary of service, March 1, 1891. Cf. Preußisch Grün, p. 126.
^ Family foundation Hofgärtner Hermann Sello Potsdam ( digital , accessed on June 7, 2011).
↑ Fintelmann, Obituary, pp. 389-390.
↑ ^a ^b ^c Fintelmann, Obituary, p. 390.
↑ ^a ^b ^c Frank Singhof, in: Preußisch Grün, p. 286.
↑ ^a ^b Clemens Alexander Wimmer . In: Prussisch Grün, p. 186.
^ Wimmer, in: Preußisch Grün, p. 101.
^ Prussian Green, p. 239.
↑ Wimmer, in: Preußisch Grün, p. 100.
^ Family foundation Hofgärtner Hermann Sello Potsdam. ( digitally , accessed June 7, 2011).
↑ Kurt Nietner continued to work in Babelsberg after the end of the monarchy, but after the reorganization of civil servants' salaries from 1920 onwards with the title of “garden inspector, estate and office manager”. See Jörg Wacker, in: Preußisch Grün, p. 107.

personal data
SURNAME	Nietner, Theodor II.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Nietner, Theodor Carl Gustav
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	German head gardener
DATE OF BIRTH	September 7, 1823
PLACE OF BIRTH	Paretz or Potsdam
DATE OF DEATH	October 13, 1894
Place of death	Potsdam

[1] To distinguish it from his father of the same name, the Potsdam gardeners added a Roman two to his name. Compare Michael Seiler: Nothing thrives without care. S. 304. This marking is also common in today's literature.

[Fintelmann_389-2] Heinrich Fintelmann, obituary in the "Zeitschrift für Gartenbau und Gartenkunst", issue 49, p. 389.

[Seiler_304-3] Michael Seiler: Nothing thrives without care. P. 304.

[Preußisch_Grün-4] Prussian Green, p. 327.

[5] Congratulatory certificate on the 50th anniversary of service, March 1, 1891. Cf. Preußisch Grün, p. 126.

[6] Family foundation Hofgärtner Hermann Sello Potsdam ( digital , accessed on June 7, 2011).

[7] Fintelmann, Obituary, pp. 389-390.

[Fintelmann_390-8] Fintelmann, Obituary, p. 390.

[Singhof_286-9] Frank Singhof, in: Preußisch Grün, p. 286.

[Wimmer_186-10] Clemens Alexander Wimmer . In: Prussisch Grün, p. 186.

[11] Wimmer, in: Preußisch Grün, p. 101.

[12] Prussian Green, p. 239.

[13] Wimmer, in: Preußisch Grün, p. 100.

[14] Family foundation Hofgärtner Hermann Sello Potsdam. ( digitally , accessed June 7, 2011).

[15] Kurt Nietner continued to work in Babelsberg after the end of the monarchy, but after the reorganization of civil servants' salaries from 1920 onwards with the title of “garden inspector, estate and office manager”. See Jörg Wacker, in: Preußisch Grün, p. 107.