Schlossgarten Weinheim

The Schlossgarten in Weinheim developed from two formal gardens associated with the town’s adjoining aristocratic residences. Its present scale owes much to Countess Auguste Waldner von Freundstein, who acquired the Ulner property in 1837 and enlarged the grounds with neighbouring land and vineyards. Broad lawns and groups of unusual trees replaced the earlier formal arrangement. The countess admitted townspeople to summer garden concerts, and her son Christian von Berckheim added further exotic plantings. The garden’s history is therefore both horticultural and musical. Above Weinheim two castles face each other across the hillside, but the town's summer evenings belong to the ground below, behind the Schloss that serves today as the town hall. The garden runs into the Exotenwald, an arboretum planted from 1872 by Christian von Berckheim with cedars, sequoias and Japanese species, so that an audience seated here is listening among trees gathered from four continents.