Walls you cannot see – a pool garden on the Tegernsee

A sloping plot above the Tegernsee, a pool whose edge blends into the lake – and behind it, the real effort: limestone walls that step the slope into levels. We remodelled this garden from 2009 to 2012, and what defines it today is not the walls themselves, but what grows out of them.

That was exactly the idea: the walls were not meant to look like built structures. Roses, lavender, sedum and grasses grow over the tops and out of the joints, so the stone simply gives structure. The sedum flowers into autumn and is the last good stop of the year for bees. Add paving around the pool, limestone block steps up the slope, privacy planting along the boundaries – and a vegetable bed, because a garden on a slope is about more than the view.

The timber and metalwork were not ours – those were handled by other trades. We did, however, maintain the garden for ten years, until 2021: topiary pruning, dividing perennials, repairing the paving at the pool. The photographs by Miquel Tres show the garden in September 2012, shortly after completion. More on our craft: walls and natural stone · perennial planting.

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Photos: Miquel Tres