@brittarnhild
The weekend ended up being a kind of a rhododendron safari. It started already in Granny´s garden, continued when we stopped at a garden center between Granny and the cabin. Saturday morning we visited a local rhododendron garden (worth its own post, and it might be one some day.....), but then the climax came on Sunday with a visit to Svinviks Arboret.
The arboret is only two hours south west of Trondheim, and only a detour from our cabin. I have wanted to go there all my life, but somehow yesterday was my first visit. Now I know I will go back every year!
Halvos Svinvik and his wife Anne started the garden around 1940, 20 yeras later the collection of trees and bushes was the biggest private one in Norway. In 1971 the couple gave the garden to the University Museum in Trondheim and from 2010 the local municipality of Surnadal has been the owner.
Halvor Svinvik, the creator of this truly amazing arboret, was visually impaired and also colourblind. I have heard that he was kind of allergic to the light from the sun and had to do his work during the night. I don´t know if this tale is true, but day or night, what this man has created on a tiny little part of wild nature on the north western coast of Norway, is amazing.
Walking in the park was like walking in a jungle, a rhododendron jungle. With bright, shining colours everywhere, like you see nowhere else in Norway.
As I sit here, trying to figure out how to best share this unique experience with you, I google both the garden and Halvor Svinvik. Sure, I find some information, but far from enough for my curiosity. Why are there no books about Halvor, about his wife Anne. Did he create this beauty of colours, a man himself colourblind, for his wife, to show her his love? Tales starts to knit themselves together in my mind, dark winter evenings when the couple sat together dreaming of summers to come, the days the postman came with envelopes with packets of rhododendrons seeds from all over the world, spring days when the seeds were sprouting, light summer nights when they sat in the forest, inside the rainbow of scented colours or late autumn days when rain and howling storms hit the valley.
There must be so many tales.
I wonder if they still are there, in the wind, in the fragrances, in the colours.
One day I will search for them,
paint them, write them, hum them, feel them.
