Visiting the botanical garden in hamburg

This week I was visiting Hamburg a city in the north of Germany for concert of King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard. If you don’t know and you are you like Stoner Rock, Psycadelic and Heavy Metal with a touch of Jazzy from time to time them give it a try. Anyways it was a short trip of 2 days and I met a dear friend of mine, that also loves the band. Since I fell in love with the plant hobby, bonsai and all that, he recommended us to go to Planten un Blomen which is a botanical garden in Hamburg. He had the right instinct, because this was really a tree fest on a cloudy day before the concert. For me it was the first time in Hamburg and since my friend visited the town sometime when he used to live in Leipzig I got a nice tour out of it.

So we entered the park and arrived almost straight in the Japanese Garden part of Planten un Blomen. I think this welcoming image of the garden was so nice with the water and all the trees around. To the left is a building, but I cropped it off so other people don’t end up in this article. Especially the tree near the water is a lovely tree, with larger trees layering behind it.

Maple tree with light green leaves in a dome shape around 2 to 2.5 metre tall, near a large pond with stones aligned along the edges. — A maple tree with light green leaves in a dome shape around 2 to 2.5 metre tall, near a large pond with stones aligned along the edges.

So my first impression was: Yeay, lots of bonsai inspiration. And the garden didn’t let me down. But please don’t overrate my enthusiasm I’m new to viewing garden landscapes, I just like to watch trees in my spare time. I sadly forgot to lookup what the ground covering plant on the next picture was.

Larger red maple planted in the ground photo taken from slightly below to show the branches arcing to left and right to form a crown. The ground is covered with a creeping plant roundish bright green leaves that forms an wavy surface. — A larger red maple planted in the ground photo taken from slightly below to show the branches arcing. The ground is covered with a creeping plant roundish bright green leaves that forms an wavy surface.

I think it’s a standard red maple but it’s growing there for quite some time, maybe 30 to 40 years in the ground? With my tiny pots I can only dream of such a large tree which is around 5-6 metres tall. I really like how the creeping plant whichs name I don’t know, forms an alternate surface on the ground. For a bonsai style the branches are not as spectacular, but one can see how they how they cut along the trunk upwards to grow this tree into a Niwaki (Japanese for garden tree).

We also came across this interesting shirasawa maple (Acer Shirasawanum), which is growing a bit weirdly. Growing against two rocks one trunk is from down below the two main trunks arching up and growing inbetween the two main trunks that split from the base. Very weird looking, but cool in my opinion. Like most of the maples this tree is also growing a dome style shape.

I haven’t seen this type of maple before, so I looked it up and it seems to me Shirasawa, which has more points than ordinary maple leaves. Up to 13 compared to the usual 5 or 3 for field or trident maples.

Maple tree photo taken from the front. Back-branch is growing entangled between to main branches and froms a dome style garden tree with delicate light green maple leaves (shirasawa has more points than ordinary maple leaves). Up to 13 compared to the usual 5 or 3. — Shirasawa maple tree photo taken from the front. Back-branch is growing entangled between to main branches and froms a dome style garden tree with delicate light green maple leaves.

Shirasawa maple tree from the back side growing against two rocks, that lay on the ground. The entangled branch comes from the back of the tree, arching up and growing between two main branches. It looks a little entangled. — Shirasawa maple tree from the back side growing against two rocks, that lay on the ground. It looks even more entangled than from the front side.

As we progress out of the Japanese part of the garden and into the other parts of the botanical gardens (park I should say) we meet larger tree specimen, like the a Robinia. Now I notice the harsh difference, these really old trees have more horizontal or hanging branches, obviously ticker trunks and better contrast between the tickness of branches as the smaller examples used to have. That’s the image bonsai people want to achive I believe an aged tick trunk tree in minture form.

Twin trunk robinia tree with a tick old barky trunk. The tree I can only estimate, around 15 metres tall. Some branches are hanging or vertically aligned. Foliage looks more delicate compared to the think aged bark trunk. — A twin trunk robinia tree with a tick old barky trunk. The tree I can only estimate, around 15 metres tall. Some branches are hanging or vertically aligned. Foliage looks more delicate compared to the think aged bark trunk.

Some picea tree, that grew a bit like a banana. It's very large, around 12 metres tall with a zigzag branch near the top that looks very out of character. — Some picea tree, that grew a bit like a banana. The tree is around 12 metres tall with a zigzag branch near the top that looks very out of character.

I’m not into Picea trees but this tree is so cool. Curvy grown, low branches are hanging slightly, but the real king for me is this funnily grown zig-zag branch near the top of the tree. Maybe it’s the angle but this branch looks so funny on this grand old tree. Maybe some employee is having a fun time for the some year.

The last tree I want to show to you is a plane tree Platanus with masses of knobbly bits. I googled for a while and it appears to be a woody extrusion people call sphaeroblast. These are buds that don’t make it to sprouts or shoots like they normally wood. These don’t produce branches or foliage but stay grow into grounded cabium, which in turn appears to be the living layer of the the tree. According to the wikipedia article this is seens as anomalous growth and could have many reasons. There seems to be little research around the topic, so I guess there are some experts out there.

Anyways anomalous or not it looks gordious. Like a warts on a witchs nose but all over the tree and since the tree grows healthy - at least it looks like it does - to me this is a feature rather then anomalous.

Plane tree with knobby wooden bits all over the trunk. The tree is in leave and shot is taken from near and below. The crown is a healthy green, while the trunk looks like it has warts all over it. These warts are buds that didn't make it to actual branches and instead grow rounded. The scientific term for the phenomena is 'sphaeroblast'.

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