Duchess Sibylla occupied herself a great deal with botany and chemistry. It was said that she tried to conceal her interest in the disreputable field of alchemy by passing off her collection of herbs as medicines for the poor. The daughter of the Nuremberg Professor Johann Magenbuch (1500–1546) and the wife of Andreas Osiander, Helena Magenbuch (1523–1597), supported her as a councilor. This led to her obtaining the title of a Württemberg court apothecary.
Duke Christoph was very dissatisfied with Silvester Berwart the Younger, because he had neglected the construction of Leonberg Palace due to his private work and also put together implausible calculations of costs. Berwart also had to have a spiral staircase in Leonberg Palace rebuilt at his own expense, which was "so low" and constructed so "that it is almost impossible to carry anything up or down".
On the widow's seat of Duchess Sibylla it is said: "She owned palaces in Reichenweiher (Alsace) and Beilenstein, which were considered as future widow's seats, however her oldest son Duke Johann Friedrich fulfilled, 'on her friendly request and desire', her wish and had the palace and garden all spruced up for her."
At the start of the work on the Bitter Orange Garden, Schickhardt carefully surveyed the hillside terrain and studied the topography with cross sections. He determined that it would have been necessary to build an approximately 26-foot (8-meter) supporting wall to realize his garden plans. The foundations of the terrace walls that already existed probably did not permit this kind further increase in the height due to the statics involved. Schickhardt solved the problem by building another approximately 3-foot (1-meter) high terrace wall. In addition, he gave the garden a slope of 5 percent. In contrast to the original plans, the garden area was completely re-dimensioned by building the wall.
A Merian silhouette from 1643 provides an insight into the townscape with the garden complex. It does reflect the silhouette of the town, however not the correct topographical characteristics of the garden. They correspond to an earlier state of the garden with a smaller, single flight of stairs. Apparently, Merian had already sketched some details of the town view very early on, so that he illustrated a situation prior to the final completion of the garden in his "vedute" (realistic depiction of the landscape).