Peter Joseph Lenné

Today is the anniversary of the death of Prussian landscape architect and gardener Peter Joseph Lenné ("Linny").
Lenné is regarded as the most important Prussian garden-artist of the 19th century. He was the director of the Royal Botanic Gardens in Berlin and Potsdam. Peter came from a long line of gardeners. In many respects, his accomplishments mirror those of his younger colleague across the ocean, Frederick Law Olmsted.
Lenné cofounded a Royal Horticultural Society in Germany. He worked tirelessly designing parks and landscape areas with green spaces. Lenné admired William Kent, whom he named “the father of the new landscape architecture.” Lenné established English landscape garden designs in Germany. Many of his designed spaces are now UNESCO World Heritage Sites.
Lenné’s legacy includes over 100 designed spaces from including parks, gardens, canals, and avenues. Rauch memorialized Lenné with a large bust in the garden of the new palace in Potsdam. The Magnolia Lenne variety was named in his honor.
Today, the Peter-Joseph-Lenné-Prize of Berlin awards fresh and creative ideas for design, planning, and use of plants in garden architecture and landscape planning.