Gartenschau Mühlacker 2015

The Gartenschau Mühlacker is a garden exhibition right in the center of the small town of Mühlacker next to the river Enz in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. The exhibition is over for this year, but I would recommend a visit during the next season. The exhibition is normally open from mid May until mid September. More information can be found on their website.

Even though it was a nice exhibition, there were a few things I think could have been better. But that might have to do with my personal taste. Check out my list of what I found good and bad below. The best time to visit this exhibition is probably sometime in June-July to make sure to catch roses and similar flowers while they are blossoming, but even now in September most of it looked nice.


Positive:

• Exciting to see what you can do with a park near a city. Many features will be open for the public after the exhibition is over.
• Nice spaces for kids to play and different activities connected to promoting knowledge about the surrounding forests, plants and animal life.
• Focus on recycling and quite some examples of utility gardens – a lot of raised beds of different type.

Negative:

• High ticket price – I found 11 Euros a bit much. Of course this kind of exhibition takes quite some work to maintain, but since it is mainly comprised of companies exhibiting their products and designs I didn’t find it motivated. A lower price would have made me open for going more times.
• The exhibition had a high focus on companies wanting to sell their services rather than showing what you can do on your own.
• Few sales stand for seeds, plants and gardening tools – something you would expect to find. I was hoping to find something for my terrace garden but ended up buying nothing but a silly souvenir sunflower in a can.
• Not the best quality food (served from a canteen) and quite expensive compared to what you get in a normal restaurant in this area.

That said, I managed to capture some nice photos during my visit. The location next to the river is fantastic and makes you want to stay for several hours just enjoying the landscape if the weather is good.

There were some art pieces featured on floating platforms out in the river.


Mangold is a tasty plant which comes in amazingly vibrant colors. You can use it to replace spinach in many dishes.

I liked the look of this small water garden. Adding water to your landscaping regulates the climate and attracts beneficial insects and animals.


The quince is a fruit which has largely been forgotten. It’s maybe due to apples and pears being tastier to eat straight from the tree, but this fruit is high in pectin which makes it perfect to add to jams and marmalades. Here it’s shown together with a fruit press.


Can you distinguish your peas from your beans and your corn from your wheat? In this game you got to guess what was in the cylinders.

Last but not least, a nice cactus terrace. The round type at the bottom has a very funny name in German: Schwiegermutterstuhl – which means mother-in-law’s chair. Someone didn’t like their mother-in-law for sure…