Britt-Arnhild's House in the Woods

Marshland transformed

@brittarnhild

Originally marshland, but in the 1920´s millionaire philanthropist Sir James Knott turned the area into a unique plant collection and botanical gardens. The Botanical Gardens at Samarès, just outside Saint Helier, the capital of Jersey. It is late September and I was afraid we were too late to enjoy a blooming garden. But I was wrong. Here we found flowers ands colours and beauty everywhere.

Even a few magnolias, huge ones, were in bloom.

We did a beautiful and very interesting guided tour of the Samarès Manor (no photographing allowed) but before and after we walked the garden.

Zinnias in different colours,

cosmos and a lot more.

We were lucky. The sun was out and made photographing a game.

Next summer I plan to grow cosmos in every colour available, in my garden. And zinnias.
And a lot more.

With little Vida to the Royal Castle

@brittarnhild

Our little princess walking though the rainbow, into the Princess Ingrid Alexandra Sculpture Park.

It took us about 20 minutes to walk from our AirB&B down to the Royal Castle and its surrounding park. Oslo has had a problem with droughts this spring, with prohibitions concerning watering gardens and parks. But, lucky for us, and for everybody else I guess, rain came a few days ago. Still no water in the fountains around the city, but the parks are green and flowering.

Here is a huge rhododendron in front of a statue of Camilla Collett, an early female Norwegian author.

Look at the beauty of this rhododendron. I wish I had one in our garden, but as we live further up north I doubt it would give much flowers there.

The first image in this post was from Princess Ingrid Alexandra's Sculpture Garden. The rest from The Queens Garden, just behind the castle.

 

The botanical gardens here in Trondheim

@brittarnhild

Some years ago I did a monthly post through the whole year here in the blog from our botanical gardens here in Trondheim. Terje and I drove over to the gardens this afternoon for a hike, and I decided to see if I can do a monthly post this year as well.

We have had a period with little snow, a lot of cold and deep frost, so everything was dead, colourless and the paths and the lawns hard as stones.

Still, if you look for it, there is always beauty to be found.
And to know that the soil you work on is filled with roots, send and bulbs which will overwhelm you with beauty and life in a few months. That's magic!

 

A Secret Garden

@brittarnhild

For more than 35 years I've spent part of every summer at Moi, a little village south west in Norway. Every summer I have passed the old, white painted house, knowing that behind the walls five sisters were living. All five are dead now, the house is sold and for the first time I was able to see behind the scenes. Both the house and the garden are under renovation, the house and its four floors a treasure. But the most charming gem is the garden behind the house, a garden which you cannot see from the street.

An old green house. A dam with a single yellow waterlily, huge yellow alchemillas.

A real secret garden, for sure!

 

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In my blog world today:

Britt Arnhilds dagboksblader, my online journal

A new episode in my vlog:

 

 

To grow a dream

@brittarnhild

Not far from our cabin a man is growing his dream, a rhododendron nursery. I have heard of the place for some years, but it was only last year we found it and visited.

Five days a week he has his ordinary job. Every Saturday morning he is selling flowers in the market place of the village. All other hours, when he is not sleeping or eating, he is taking care of his flowers.

Rhododendrons, hundreds, may be thousands of them. And annuals.

Last spring we visited his rhododendron garden.
Today we have been to the nursery, out on a small island.

To grow a dream.
Not all people do that.

People who do live enriched, enchanted lives.

I am still an apprentice in this art, but after 57 years I am on my way to become a master........I hope.

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Here is last year´s post from the garden.

and

here is the garden´s web page.

 

 

One stop, and here we are

@brittarnhild

Cabin life weekend. On our way out here we stopped to visit Jorun (she comments here as granny), her kitchen and her garden.

Jorun´s garden has been an inspiration for my own gardening for many years. A place made with green fingers, ccreativity, charm and a lot of fun. Jorun lives on a dairy farm, and she and her daughter in law have painted their wheelbarrow, hoping that this will prevent their husbands, the farmers to steal their barrow whan they can´t find their own. So far it has worked......almost.

 A cold April in Mid-Norway, and our gardens looks far from what I met in England a week ago. But dreams and plants are growing, and will soon bloom.

While we sat inside Jorun´s huge, warm kitchen, eating her tomato soup, among the best I have even eaten, it was snowing outside. Luckily it melted fast, and Jorun could take us on a garden walk.

Finally, in the late afternoon, we arrived at Rastarbo, our cabin.

 

Inspiration from a book about pioneer gardeners, Woburn Abbey Gardens

@brittarnhild

This winter & spring I have been reading a book about pioneer British gardeners, The Brother Gardeners by Andrea Wulf. Actually it is a little strange that I started this book in the first place, as it is female gardeners who are my passion, but somehow I came over it, it looked interesting, and there I was.......hooked.

I read book with a pen or a pencil in my right hand, and on page 100 in The Brother Gardenes it came handy..........since Philip Miller acted as consultant to the Duke of Bedford about his estate at Woburn in Bedfordshire..........hi, Bedford and Bedfordshire, that´s where "my" abbey is, isn´t it? I checked google maps on my ipad, and right, quite close to Turvey it was.

I have a blog reader (and a fellow blogger) who lives close to Turvey, and now I sent her a message; Lindsay, are you in for a garden visit?

Lindsay was in, and on Saturday, on my last day at Turvey Abbey, just after breakfast, she picked me up with her Peugeot and her GPS. Woburn Abbey and Gardens our destination.

Before reaching the gardens we had to drive though a deer park, and we were lucky, a huge hoard of the deers was out. And we were lucky once more, as we arrived in the garden just before the tourist buses started to come.

Which meant that for a long time we had the gardens almost all alone.

Woburn Abbey is huge, and so are the garden. And very well maintained. As we are in the middle of April it is still spring. I guess the gardens will be marvellous in a month or two. But even now I loved them!

Unfortunately the maze was closed,

so we had to enjoy it from outside the fence only.

But there were enough other things to see and enjoy.

The Camelia House, which I posted about the other day, the peek highlight :-)

When people ask me why I love England and Great Britain so much, I know exactly what to answer:

I love its gardend and its gardeners.

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Woburn Abbey and Gardens

 

My friend Lindsay´s blog

 

 

 

The Gardener

@brittarnhild

As many of you know, I am working on a book. A book which might never been published, it might even never been finished. But the writing gives me a lot of fun. At one time the main character in the books goes to London to work as a gardener in The Royal Parks, or may be she does........as the book is in progress, everything might change of course.

 

 Terje and I spent yesterday morning in Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens. Having coffee at The Lido Cafe, lunch at The Kensington Palace Orangery, and when I saw this female gardener working in The Sunken Garden, I couldn´t stop myself taking a series of photos.

Looks like Terje was more interested in photographing me though...........

 

The challenge of growing cabin roses

@brittarnhild

We took over the cabin at Easter 2000 (my parents had built it in 1976) and one of the first things I started to do was to make a garden. Very slowly in the beginning, a tiny little bed with a tiny little rose.

Already the first year I met the challenge.....how could I take care of a garden when we were away for weeks at a time during the hottest, dryest periods of the year.

Over the hears the garden has grown, a little piece of new land cultivated every year.

The cabin garden is simple, consisting of roses and herbs, and also one cherry tree, one plum tree and one red currant. A few strawberry plants, a forsythia shrub and a few perennials.

The birds love our cherries, our red currant and our strawberries. So far we´ve had no plums.

We love the birds and don´t mind them eating our berries.

Butterflies and bumblebees also love my garden, and we love them.

This year has been extra challenging for the garden. We´ve been away for weeks, and it did not rain for weeks.

All the roses have survived, but their flowers are tiny and few.

 

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We are spending a few days at the cabin, and yesterday I spent a couple of hours weeding, watering, adding fertilizer, talking with the plants. And one thing I know for sure - as long as I am fit enough to weed, my cabin rose garden will survive!

 

And when you follow your dream it comes true

@britarnhild

I have been up to "my" little red house again today. More photos, a peek in through the only window without shutters, more photos....a lot more photos. The house is not for sale, but my dream is for free and will stay with me.

28 years ago Johhny came to Lofoten from Sweden. Just like me he fell in love with the place, and a year later he had bought his dream. Today, many years later, Johhny is married to my best friend´s brother, we are facebook friends and instagram followers, and through internet I feel I take part in a tiny little bit of Johnny´s dream.

 Johnny and Trygve live in Southern Sweden, but spend every summer in Lofoten. When Terje and I came here last summer it was still early summer and Johnny and Trygve had not arrived. We climbed the gate to their home and felt like intruders to the amazing perennial garden, took a million photos and later I sent an email asking if I could use some of the photos in a blog post. Johnny said yes then, and yes again today when we came to visit. This time by an invitation, knowing that both men would be there to greet us.

 

This year Johnny and Trygve arrived from Sweden early in the summer, and have since then been digging, weeding, planting and cultivating their garden.

We were taken on a garden tour, among the 300+ different perennials.
To manage a garden like this, north of the arctic circle, staying here only during the short summer.....I can´t imagine how they do it.

After a long walk Trygve said: "I hope you are hungry. We have coffee, pancakes and cloudberries waiting for all of us inside"

Hot pancakes, Swedish coffee and cloudberry jam! Of course we were hungry. Trygve and Johnny had made a huge pile of pancakes, but between the four of us we managed to eat them all :-)

On Sunday Johnny and Trygve will have an "Open Garden" with people coming from far and close to enjoy their parennials. We have traveled south by then, but were lucky enough to have our very special garden walk alone with these two creative, charming guys!

 

You can follow Johnny and Trygve on their instagram blog @hageflekkinord