Always something to do: Former Berlinale director Dieter Kosslick gardening.
(Photo: Julia Rothhaas)
“Actually, there would be marigolds here,” says Dieter Kosslick. Instead, a colony of evening primroses has spread out in front of his house, thick stems everywhere, which multiply quickly, nothing there with marigolds. “They robbed my bed and now I’m torn about what to do with it.” He puts his hands on his hips. Just rip out? Absolutely no way. It’s a medicinal plant, you can make tea and oil from it, it attracts butterflies and bees, and it has beautiful yellow flowers. One day the evening primrose should be allowed to bloom, according to the plan, “then I have to wait for the right time to rip it out before it sheds its seeds”.
Kosslick looks a little disgusted, but he’s not. Coincidences in the garden are very welcome to him, even if the marigolds (one of his favorite flowers!) have to stay puny this year. For the former Berlinale director, come what may. “I always drop everything to see what it could be.” Each stalk can push itself up, then it decides whether the plant can continue to grow. There are gardeners who have a precise planting plan for everything, who are disappointed when something doesn’t work out and tear out what doesn’t belong somewhere. And there are gardeners like Dieter Kosslick who let the garden have a say. And watch him with joy.
The principle of wild growth: In Dieter Kosslick’s garden, whatever you want can grow.
(Photo: Julia Rothhaas)
It is precisely this wild growth system that makes the Kosslick family’s garden near Berlin’s Tiergarten so beautiful: there is no meadow, but hydrangeas bloom in large clay pots on the L-shaped terrace of the bungalow, and the summer lilac in the corner competes with it Cranesbill in the bed, the bamboo bends over a seating area. Lavender, ferns, rhododendrons, dead nettles, elf mirrors, farmer’s roses – everything is there, like in a plant market. A pine tree is enthroned above everything, which was only one meter tall when we moved in – and now towers far above the roof. A wisteria clings to its trunk.
There is also enough to snack on: the fig trees threw 50 fruits last year, the espalier apple had 20 apples and tomatoes, lettuce and herbs grow on the back part of the terrace. And: sage. “A terrific plant, I can never say no to that. Fried in olive oil over pasta, great!” Kosslick is currently growing Peruvian coriander, which he received as a gift at a reading in Tübingen. Not unusual, word has gotten around about his love of greenery. He gets little plants pressed into his hand again and again.
When Dieter Kosslick works in the garden – or rather muddles around, it looks like this: looking, plucking, looking, cutting something, looking, harvesting. “For all its wildness, you have to take care of your garden, but it must never dominate you,” says the 74-year-old, who directed the Berlinale for 18 years (trademark: hat) and now works as a cultural manager. Gardening has grounded him even at professional peaks, although there was little time during the film festival. “But nothing beats the twilight hour at six in the morning, when the day and the plants wake up. Nobody goes to the cinema that early,” says Kosslick, who was considered a “bear in a good mood” on the red carpet and thanks to his good mood Contacts Hollywood brought to Berlin in large quantities.
He has a clear agreement with his wife Wilma: He is the boss around the house, she can plant plants on the balcony on the first floor. However, there is no discernible difference in terms of plant preference: zinias, cornflowers, marigolds, nasturtiums, coneflowers. So it’s colorful here too.
Dense and green, but hopelessly overplanted
And yet: “I know, my garden is hopelessly overplanted,” says Dieter Kosslick. But the main thing is dense and green, after all, you owe it to the insects. What follows is a mini tantrum about people who cement their gardens or send robot lawn mowers across tiny meadows, “awful, this addiction to the perfect garden and manicured lawn”. After all, it is one of the few retreat areas in cities for the smallest inhabitants of the world. It’s different in the Kosslick cosmos: Here it’s buzzing and crawling, a fox is sleeping at the neighbor’s, an eagle recently sat on the pine tree with a wingspan of two meters, which had probably escaped from the zoo.
Dieter Kosslick used to muddle around in the garden with his mother, who raised him alone and who was given a piece of land in Isprungen near Pforzheim for the small family. No bigger than his Berlin conservatory today, but enough space for potatoes, runner beans, lettuce, rhubarb, currants and gooseberries. When he then bought a 200-year-old farmhouse near Hamburg in 1980, he laid out his first own, matching garden with hollyhocks, phlox, delphiniums and a box tree in the middle. That went well until the Zünsler came. And because you have to regularly lend a hand with such a cottage garden, at some point everything was overgrown. “You always have to be there for such a large garden with a vegetable patch, which wasn’t possible for me at the time,” says Kosslick.
It’s more relaxed in his Berlin garden today. To make things colorful, he sometimes digs something up and sees if he likes it. Kosslick is now standing in front of one of the many pots, next to the rose he discovers a deadnettle that is slowly fanning out. He adjusts his straw hat, another coincidence, but hey, “I can’t just pull a deadnettle out!” Of course, he also deliberately placed a few plants in the garden, such as the loosestrife in the semi-shade under the pine wisteria, which glows yellow in front of the living room window, “my flower television”. And the cinnamon tree standing so he can see it from the kitchen table. Because it’s the last tree in autumn that still bears leaves, cinnamon colored.
A raised bed would be nice. But is it too big?
lunchtime. With his favorite pair of scissors, he cuts off large-leaved rocket in one of the raised beds he built himself (box on folding chair). “It’s a miracle: as soon as you get into the kitchen, you can start harvesting again outside,” says Kosslick and grins mischievously. In the kitchen, he gently washes his prey and lays it on a towel to dry. The soft green leaves should not bend before they are eaten. And the snail, how does animal lover and vegetarian Kosslick feel about it? “There are said to be sadists who cut snails down the middle with a spade.” He himself hasn’t had any problems this year, but he has set up beer traps before. “If so, it’s better to die drunk.”
If you don’t have a fixed plan, you can look forward to a garden that always looks a little different every year. But Kosslick is not short of ideas. Next season he wants to have pole beans again and a real raised bed, whatever you could plant there. Only: “I have many ideas, but it can take a while until I implement them.” Above all, a raised bed must not be too big, he worries, such a box is already a statement. With two moving boxes, he wants to try out what it would look like soon. He already has the first piece for his project lying in a corner: a pile of twigs to fill.
Kosslick’s passion for gardening has been unbroken for years. “Because my garden is so small, that’s what keeps it fun.” However, a wish to plant remains a long way off, he dreams of one of the “most beautiful trees there is”, with wonderfully unusual fruits and leaves that first turn green, then red: the vinegar tree. He would have a place for it, the tree would even feel comfortable on the ground in Berlin (he knows that because the neighbor has one), but what a pity: “I absolutely cannot eat anything with even a splash of vinegar on it. Even the word near me doesn’t work at all.”
No passion without accessories. Dieter Kosslick needs these three items to muddle around in the garden:
The scissors
Small branches and sometimes lettuce leaves: Dieter Kosslick uses these scissors in the garden.
(Photo: Julia Rothhaas)
“I bought them at the Staudenmarkt in Berlin, there are plants there, but also old garden tools. My collection is considerable, but I’ve now imposed a purchase ban on myself. But I couldn’t say no to the scissors because they’re so well made and feels really good in the hand. It’s maybe 50 years old, so it’s not an antique. I have it sharpened once a year, it costs five euros, and then it’s like new.”
The Seedrill Claw
The so-called “devil’s claw” prefers the seed grooves in spring, beans, rocket, peas come in.
(Photo: Julia Rothhaas)
“My devil’s claw! I also bought it at the market, someone once had it forged according to their own ideas. What makes the rake so good? It has a short handle and is only 6.5 centimeters wide, so you can use it very nicely go between the seedlings. And when the soil is dry, I make seed grooves with it.”
The Garden Book Collection
Dieter Kosslick likes to collect. Not only old gardening tools, but also old gardening books.
(Photo: Julia Rothhaas)
“Of course you don’t need the many books by the garden guru Karl Foerster for gardening, but to stay in his style: you should have at least one. I’m particularly fond of rarities like the plant catalogs from the GDR. When we still had a farm, I heard about it for the first time; a cemetery gardener had told me about it. The planting system was so convincing in the first year because we hardly had to do anything. Something always bloomed.”