The friends stop abruptly on their way to the stalls at the historic princess house.

Your path leads past rhododendrons almost as high as a house, which grow everywhere in the park and are the highlight of Schloss Wolfsgarten when they bloom in spring.

But instead of the usual lush dark green bushes, the gaze falls on sad brown skeletal branches whose leaves have curled up and dried up and lost the fight for water.

The record summer also left clear traces in the extensive gardens of the 300-year-old hunting lodge of the Landgraves of Hesse-Darmstadt.

At least in the coming year, no more buds and blossoms will sprout at this point, the visitors suspect.

Dutchman Harry Huisman has been exhibiting at the garden festival in Langen for ten years.

Huisman specializes in hydrangeas, which are among the favorites of German gardeners.

This time he distributed white cards with yellow sun symbols between his plants.

"For sunny locations" is written on it.

Hydrangeas need a lot of water and in times of climate change, experts predict, they will have just as much trouble in many gardens in the future as rhododendrons, which need damp and shady locations.

But Huisman still gives hydrangea fans hope.

Not all varieties "drink" as much water as farmer's hydrangeas, with their large leaves and flowers, he explains.

The trader is therefore now focusing on more robust species that tolerate drought and sun better.

Panicle and snowball hydrangeas or the Japanese hydrangea "Hydrangea serrata" survive warm summers much better because they have smaller leaves and their shoots do not absorb as much moisture.

Huisman, who also works as a landscape gardener in his home country, wants to better inform his customers about what can still be planted in sunny locations in times of dry and hot summers.

Country motto France

The Hessian House Foundation, which organizes the garden festival, has also accepted this challenge.

Numerous lectures over the three days of the festival revolve around topics such as climate change, drought, wild flowers, natural gardens, insect and bee protection.

For example, Claudia Peselmann from the Bad Homburg tree nurseries talks about drought artists like lavender, which survives hot summers.

And Folko Kullmann, editor-in-chief of the magazine "Gartenpraxis", is also trying to make garden owners a little more optimistic.

He describes how heat, drought, heavy rain and storms can be better defied in the future with adapted use of plants, choice of location and green design.

The two Frankfurters Katja and Stefanie are also looking for ideas for their gardens.

They have already got tips on more drought-resistant varieties from hydrangea experts Huisman.

They also visited a stand with prairie plants and organic perennials.

"Chemistry," says Stefanie, "doesn't come into my garden." But they don't come to Langen just because of the plants.

Year after year, the friends attend the garden party with their mothers.

"Eat and drink well, enjoy the ambience, that's always a nice package," says Katja.

Each time they resolve to buy fewer plants - "and then the trunk is always full."

Pleasure plays an important role at the garden party.

With “Bonjour la France”, France is the theme of the festival this time.

"The country motto is always well received by the visitors, and a nice supporting program can be designed around it," says Myriam Eickhoff from the Hessian House Foundation.

The program includes, for example, an open-air reading on "The Gardens of Paris" with Murielle Rousseau.

The French author reads not far from the tea house, where the ensemble Rendez-Vous stopped by on Saturday afternoon: a quartet that moves through the park with double bass, guitar, clarinet and a charming singer, playing chansons by Charles Aznavour or Edith Piaf.