Schwetzingen - Schlösser-Magazin

pot plants during the winter, the southern
pavilion had by 1755 acquired two lavishly
decorated festive halls, one for dining and one
for gambling. These rooms were linked to the
palace by the gallery to the old orangery.
A note was written on 27 November 1756 to
say that the stock of the orangery would have
to be reduced as there was a “great superfluity”
of trees – at the time there were almost 900
orange trees and 21 other species. All these
plants were ranged in the round parterre of
the palace garden.
The New Orangery
The additional need for space where the tubs
could overwinter, and also for more space to
display them during the summer months,
prompted Elector Carl Theodor to ask his
chief architect Nicolas de Pigage in 1761 to
design and build another orangery. Two “glass
houses” were to be combined with it to cater
for the growing desire for more hothouse
vegetables. This project was to be undertaken
below the northern bosquets. Construction
proceeded apace, and the orangery – built
to purpose – was already available for use
in the winter of 1762/63. The orangery trees
had already been removed from the circular
parterre in the summer of 1762 and taken
to the new orangery garden, where the canal
completed that spring as a reservoir had
improved watering techniques tremendously.
In summer 1764, paths were set down across
the orangery square and lawn was laid in
the compartments. The construction of two
wooden bridges at the short ends of the
canal was delayed until 1776. A year later
the orangery island was adorned with stone
vases by Johann Matthäus van den Branden.
It is not precisely clear when the eastern
glasshouse was built, but the idea of building
a pendant to the west of the orangery is
mentioned frequently. By 1794, there was
already an abundance of material about the
design of this building, but the work was
postponed with the request that “thought be
given to completing this building when times
and conditions are better”.
IV. Palace Gardens: Role and Significance
When the new orangery entered service, all
the Elector’s orangeries were reorganized as
a consequence. In 1762, the best plants in the
Mannheim Orangery were taken to Benrath,
and the poorer ones came to Schwetzingen to
be sold. Finally, in 1774, all the orangery tubs
from Düsseldorf were shipped to Ketsch and
transported from there to Schwetzingen.
When Friedrich Ludwig von Sckell was
appointed court gardener in 1792, he also
assumed responsibility for the Schwetzingen
orangery. Although he relinquished 200 tubs,
they still amounted in total to the proud sum
of 1,050. That same year the “Protocollum
Commissionale” contained stipulations as to
the care and maintenance of the orangery.
Sckell seems to have attached importance to
a detailed description of the labour-intensive
operations: to plant out 140 to 150 trees a
year required the efforts of 8 men over 4 to 6
weeks. To water the plants in one day called
for 24 men. Taking the tubs out and putting
them back took 5 days each, with 36 men
and 12 horses on the job. Leaf mould had to
be brought in from the clearings after being
“specially treated” for three years.
Cuts in the garden budget in 1800 meant
savings in orangery operations, too. The tub
collection was reduced to 600 trees. Around
1820 Johann Michael Zeyher reports in his
“Description of the Gardens at Schwetzingen”:
“To the right the handsome orangery square
spreads out before one’s eyes; during the
IV.
Fig. 2: New orangery and
orangery parterre (Photo:
Wetzel).
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