An interview with yours truly at Holma Forest Garden in Southern Sweden during my visit in early May. Filmed and produced by Jim Nilsson who did an excellent job I think :) The interviewer is Eric Karlsson!
Click here: https://vimeo.com/172589400
Below are a few pictures I took of early spring in the this great Forest Garden:
Sherpa onion (Allium wallichii) and basil pesto for tonight’s dinner! Delicious!
I’ve been growing basil in my office at work since I was a student in Edinburgh in 1978, having been inspired by a fellow student the year before in Norwich… fast approaching 40 years as a basil grower then!
Hablitzia and a grape vine vying for the best place on the wall of my house :)
If Hablitzia, the Caucasian Spinach, had been discovered in Italy these unopen flower clusters would no doubt be known as Hablizzoli…Hablitzia broccolis or Broccoli di Hablizzias….Although small, they are the tastiest part of the plant so far…simply delicious :)
Two of the perennial beans, Phaseolus polystachios, have germinated :)
See my earlier blog about this exciting plant here: http://www.edimentals.com/blog/?page_id=3600
Malvikodden is a fantastic mixed woodland area on the other side of the bay (Malvikbukta) from where I live, sadly largely felled by heavy machinery… anyway, it still has an amazingly rich flora with lowland species growing alongside plants you would normally associated with the mountains growing on rocks next to the fjord including purple saxifrage (Saxifraga oppositifolia) which normally blooms early in April. The south side of Malvikodden has/had one of the densest communities of song birds in our area thanks to the large diversity of deciduous trees. The only known breeding of stock dove (skogdue) in our region is here. A campaign “Bevar Malvikodden” (Save Malvikodden) lead by local man Pål Malvik luckily (by one vote) fought off plans to make the area a “Friluftsområdet” (recreational area) some years ago, including a large car park for hundreds of vehicles and a road to empty toilets on planned beaches on both sides of the area… We believed at the time that the area was too small that it would ever be felled…
A large Facebook album of pictures taken over many years: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10151959609890860.1073741968.655215859&type=1&l=a1a2728485
Click the link below to get a list (Excel) of plants registered at Malvikodden and Malvikbukta, including 179 species of flowering plant, almost 10% of all found in Norway!
For the second night running a rainbow developed at about 10:40 and this time developed into one of the best displays I’ve seen, lasting almost 30 minutes when the sun went down…continually changing from a weak single bow that seemed to split at the top….developing into a full bow which landed in a spruce tree in the garden…and gradually fading as the sun set :)
I was surprised to see two Gunneras (both tinctoria/chilensis and manicata) outside at the Ringve Botanical Gardens in Trondheim at the weekend. Reidun Mork told me that they had used the same overwintering technique as they used at the Copenhagen Botanical Gardens, where she used to work. I knew exactly what she meant as I’d taking a picture in Copenhagen of this in early May (second picture). I’ve never seen overwintered Gunnera so far north before. Gunnera tinctoria is one of the 80 in my book and has special significance locally as the genus was named after Trondheim Bishop Gunnerus (by Linnaeus).
I must have a go at overwintering my pot grown specimen…
With air temperature forecast to rise above 20C, I noticed this beauty having a bath from the cycle path…
These 4 fun-loving specimens of Homo sapiens from Germany, the US, Denmark and Norway, on a secret mission, raided my garden of some giant vegetables this evening and here they are caught in the act! All may eventually be revealed…
