Wilhelm Schacht (botanist)

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Wilhelm Schacht (1985), left Dieter Schacht, right John Ferguson

Wilhelm Schacht (born December 11, 1903 in Munich , † February 17, 2001 in Frasdorf ) was a German botanist , gardener , photographer and author . He gained great fame as a manager of the Botanical Garden in Munich-Nymphenburg , whose outdoor department he was in charge of for 21 years.

The gardener

Born in Munich as the son of the German painter Wilhelm M. Schacht (1872–1951), Wilhelm Schacht began an apprenticeship as a gardener in 1918 in a horticultural company in Rothenburg . After completing his apprenticeship, he hired himself in 1920 as a gardener's assistant in a nursery in Rastenburg near Weimar. There he met Leo Jelitto, a well-known gardener and botanist at the time, who later became co-editor of the ten-volume textbook “Freiland-Schmuckstauden”, in which he also included Schacht as author and co-editor. Schacht later wrote several specialist books together with Jelitto.

In 1927 Schacht became gardening inspector in the parks of Tsar Boris III. on the Black Sea coast. In 1936 he became director of all the Royal Gardens of Bulgaria. With the support of the monarch, who himself was interested in botanicals, he designed the royal gardens. He worked in Bulgaria until 1944. Shortly before the end of the war he returned to Germany and looked after the gardens of the former Tsar Ferdinand , the father of Tsar Boris III , in Coburg . was.

The botanist

Schacht came to the Munich-Nymphenburg Botanical Garden in 1947. There he headed the outdoor department for 21 years. One of his priorities was the expansion and maintenance of the alpine garden on the Schachen. The Schachengarten, as it is also called, and the Alpinum in the Botanical Garden have shaped Schacht significantly. On his travels all over the world he discovered and collected many plants, which he researched botanically and propagated in Munich. He became known for the Spirke, also called hooked pine or upright mountain pine ( Pinus mugo subsp. Uncinata ), a subspecies of the genus pines ( Pinus ), which some authors also have the rank of a species Pinus uncinata ; he brought them as seedlings from the Pyrenees to Munich-Nymphenburg and cultivated them there. Wilhelm Schacht's successor in looking after the Alpine Garden on the Schachen and the Alpinum in the Botanical Garden in Munich-Nymphenburg was his son Dieter Schacht.
Schacht was friends with Ernst von Siemens , who was an excellent plant connoisseur and supported projects in the Botanical Garden in Munich-Nymphenburg with the Carl Friedrich von Siemens Foundation, which he founded. In Schacht's era, a total of 1.6 million DM flowed from the Siemens Foundation into the show and growing greenhouses of the Botanical Garden. Together with Siemens, Schacht initiated the “Society of Friends of the Munich Botanical Garden”. The most famous facility initiated and maintained by the Society of Friends and Ernst von Siemens to this day is the alpine plant greenhouse in Munich-Nymphenburg, in which numerous sensitive alpine plants are cultivated and displayed. Schacht was also friends with the painter Claus Caspari (1911–1980), who created many of his flower paintings, especially of orchids, in connection with Schacht in the Munich-Nymphenburg Botanical Garden.

The author and photographer

Long before his retirement in 1986, Schacht chose photography as his second hobby. He furnished his countless articles in horticultural and botanical specialist publications with his own pictures. His first big book about the "outdoor ornamental shrubs" has been a standard work since 1950. He published it together with Leo Jelitto, and later edited it together with Alfred Feßler. In 1953 the book "Der Steingarten" followed, also a standard work and one of the most famous books by Wilhelm Schacht. "Flower bulbs for the garden and home" followed in 1953, "Spring messengers, first flowers in the garden" in 1971 and "Flowers of Europe" in 1976.

Honors

Wilhelm Schacht was an honorary member of the Bavarian Botanical Society, honorary member of the English Alpine Garden Society, corresponding member of the Lily Society, member of the Rock Guard Society in Scotland of the British Royal Horticultural Society. In 1996 Wilhelm Schacht received the Ernst von Siemens Medal from the Society of Friends of the Botanical Garden in Munich .

Works (selection)

  • Wilhelm Schacht: The rock garden and its world: A manual f. Lover u. Expert on d. Plants, plant, etc. Care of large u. small rock gardens in the open air under glass . 3. Edition. Ulmer-Verlag, Stuttgart 1960, p. 230 .
  • Wilhelm Schacht: The rock garden . 4th edition. Ulmer-Verlag, Stuttgart 1968, p. 222 .
  • Wilhelm Schacht, Johann Leinfelder: House plants easily cared for . Fruit and Gartenbauverlag, Munich 1970, ISBN 978-3-87596-055-6 , p. 48 .
  • Wilhelm Schacht: The flower year in the garden . 4th edition. Fruit and Gartenbauverlag, Munich 1970, ISBN 978-3-87596-056-3 , p. 44 .
  • Wilhelm Schacht: Heralds of spring: the first flower pile in the garden. 4th edition. Ulmer-Verlag, Stuttgart 1971, ISBN 978-3-8001-6047-1 , p. 160 .
  • Wilhelm Schacht: Flowers of Europe: a nature guide for flower lovers . 1st edition. Parey-Verlag, Hamburg 1976, ISBN 978-3-489-77222-4 , pp. 203 .
  • Hans Simon, Wilhelm Schacht, Leo Jelitto: The outdoor ornamental perennials. Manual and lexicon of hardy garden shrubs . 4th revised edition. Ulmer-Verlag, Stuttgart 1990, ISBN 3-8001-6378-0 .

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Wolfgang Lippert: Obituary: Wilhelm Schacht . Ed .: Reports of the Bavarian Botanical Society. No. 71 . Bavarian Botanical Society for the Research of Native Flora eV, ISSN  0373-7640 , p. 173 ff .
  2. ↑ a b dorotheum.com :: Auction catalog: Oil paintings and watercolors of the 19th century - Wilhelm Schacht (Lot No. 153). June 16, 2014, accessed February 23, 2017 .
  3. ↑ Hans Simon, Wilhelm Schacht, Leo Jelitto: The free-range ornamental shrubs. Manual and lexicon of hardy garden shrubs . 4th revised edition. Ulmer-Verlag, Stuttgart 1990, ISBN 3-8001-6378-0 .
  4. ↑ a b Sebastian Seidl, Altdorf-Eugenbach: Honor for Wilhelm Schacht (PDF page 9). Society for scientific data processing mbH Göttingen , accessed on February 23, 2017 .
  5. ^ Stefan Caspari: Portrait and works of Claus Caspari. stefancaspari.de, accessed on March 1, 2017 .
  6. ↑ Claus Caspari: Wild orchids - found and painted in Bavaria and Italy. Botanical Garden Munich-Nymphenburg , accessed on February 23, 2017 .
  7. ↑ Hans Simon, Wilhelm Schacht, Leo Jelitto: The free-range ornamental shrubs. Manual and lexicon of hardy garden shrubs . 4th revised edition. Ulmer-Verlag, Stuttgart 1990, ISBN 3-8001-6378-0 .
  8. ^ Wilhelm Schacht: Flowers of Europe: a nature guide for flower lovers . 1st edition. Parey-Verlag, Hamburg 1976, ISBN 978-3-489-77222-4 , pp. 203 .
personal data
SURNAME Schacht, Wilhelm
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German botanist, gardener, photographer and author
DATE OF BIRTH December 11, 1903
PLACE OF BIRTH Munich
DATE OF DEATH February 17, 2001
Place of death Frasdorf