Biotope Design

The Prairie Nursery

2012-01-30T00:38:00.000-08:00

The Show Garden at The Prairie Nursery

Last year I made a prairie tour to Illinois and Wisconsin for three weeks and now I am planning another trip to U.S.this summer. Maybe I'll start with the 30th Perennial Plant Symposium in Boston, Massachusetts and then continue to Chicago. This time my plan is to drive through Illinois to Kansas and then back to Chicago through Missouri and to make interesting stops here and there along the road.

Of course it is the world's last and only preserved prairie landscapes that attracts, the Flint Hills of Kansas. There one can view large herds of bison and rolling prairies as far as the eye can see. But before we go deeper too much into the forthcoming trip, I'd like to tell you something from a visit to The Prairie Nursery in Westfield, Wisconsin, I visited last summer, the first week of August.

Neil Diboll shows me the difference between the species of Vernonia

The Prairie Nursery is run by Neil Diboll, a highly skilled grower and an internationally recognized pioneer in the use of native North American Prairie plants in gardens and landscapes. Neil is also a very talented and entertaining lecturer and I have earlier been privileged to listen to his lectures in both Alnarp in Sweden and Weinheim, Germany.

I have previously bought seeds from The Prairie Nursery to my landscaping projects in Alnarp, Laholm and Mariestad, and was therefore particularly interested in meeting Neil and his staff and to see how the nursery looked like.

Thousands upon thousands of small prairie plant seedlings in the greenhouse

After looking around in the office, we drove to the nursery where Neil first showed me the modern greenhouse, where nearly everything was controlled automatically, but the monitoring of the small, scrawny seedlings were handled manually of course.

Part of the model gardens at The Prairie Nursery in Westfield

At the nursery they have created several small model gardens with different themes. Here were, for example, a butterfly garden, a healing garden and a deer resistent garden. The prairie plants were planted in beautiful combinations in each garden plot and just at my visit, nearly all the plants appeared to be at their absolute peak development. It was clear that I had managed to hit on the right week for my stay, at least regarding the amazing flower display.

Agastache foeniculum, Monarda fistulosa and Ratibida pinnata

Liatris and Parthenium integrifolium

Neil Diboll and Peter Gaunitz outside the office. Photo: Sarie Doverspike

Prairie Milkweed, Asclepias sullivantii

Trees for Tough Urban Sites

2012-01-19T21:12:00.000-08:00

A short speech before the ceremony. Roland von Bothmer and Henrik Sjöman

Today was the day of nailing at SLU in Alnarp. Henrik Sjöman nailed his Doctoral Thesis on a plank standing in our coffee room for this very purpose. His supervisors Anders Busse Nielsen and Roland von Bothmer offered him four different hammers and even four kinds of nails to choose from. Henrik took the safest hammer but had brought a beautiful home-forged and family-made nail in his pocket.

Henrik’s Doctoral Thesis is named Trees for Tough Urban Sites – Learning from Nature. He has been studying forestry systems, taxa and plant communities in both China's mountain forests and the Steppe woodlands of Romania. The essay will be searchable on the Epsilon.

Nailing the Doctoral Thesis, 19 January 2012, 10.00 am

Henrik's Choice infront of the feet of Anders Busse Nielsen

Acta Universitatis Agriculturae Sueciae Doctoral Thesis No. 2012:7

Madison Arboretum

2011-12-22T03:19:00.000-08:00

One of the first days of August this year I visited The University of Wisconsin Arboretum in Madison.There is so much to see here and very excited, I stopped already directly at the entrance to the park at a colorful prairie planting with Yellow Coneflower, Ratibida pinnata, Sweet Coneflower, Rudbeckia subtomentosa, Culver's Root, Veronicastrum virginicum and Pale Indian Plantain, Arnoglossum atriplicifolium, among other prairie species.

Steve Glass is telling me about the Curtis Prairie

At the Visitor Center I met Steve B. Glass who showed me around and was my excellent guide the whole day. Steve is as restoration ecologist responsible for the restoration planning and the fire management at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Arboretum where he has been active in all phases of prairie restoration since the late 80s.

Steve showed me first the Native Plant Garden and then we walked out on the Curtis Prairie and studied the dynamics of prairie vegetation. My guide turned out to be a skilled prairie ecologist and since he was both pleasant and accommodating, we had a very fruitful day in the great outdoors.

Afterwards, Steve gave me even a bag full of interesting material and a book on plants at Madison Arboretum, which I had great pleasure from.

A colorful prairie planting already at the entrance to the Arboretum.

Yellow Coneflower and Pale Indian Plantain at the entrance

Eupatorium purpureum in the dry shade beneath a Bur Oak

Purple Coneflowers, Echinacea purpurea, at the Curtis Prairie

Curtis Prairie is the oldest restored prairie in North America and occupies about 60 acres of land. It is a deep-soil tallgrass prairie with a huge diversity of prairie plants. In July and August the Liatris, Monarda and Echinacea provide for the greatest color display and in early fall it is the grasses and the sumacs who excel in the most brilliant fall colors. The Smooth Sumac, Rhus glabra, grows scattered almost everywhere on the Curtis Prairie and spreads by underground runners. In autumn the leaves turn deep scarlet red with less orange tints compared to Rhus typhina.

Ironweed and Yellow Coneflower at the edge of the Curtis Prairie

The Curtis Prarie with Liatris and Eryngiym yuccifolium

Along the path to Greene Prairie we passed through a small woodland with dry, sandy soil. Here we found many drought tolerant species as Plantain-leaved Pussytoes, Antennaria plantaginifolia, and the Silver Sage, Artemisia ludoviciana, growing among the patches of Smooth Sumac.

Big leaves of Prairie Dock, Silphium terebinthinaceum at Greene Prairie

Steve discoverd a hybrid between Compass Plant, Silphium laciniatum and Prairie Dock, Silphium terebinthinaceum with intermediate leaves growing at Greene Prairie

Nodding Onion, Allium cernuum, along the track

Grasses shines in autumn and winter

2011-12-10T22:42:00.000-08:00

Molinia arundinacea 'Cordoba' in the citypark of Laholm in November

Autumn is the time when grasses step up and outshines all withered perennials and former blooming companions in the border. Whenever you place a plant in the garden, you should always think about how the sunlight wanders around during the day. Almost all plants are most beautiful when they get the sun's rays from behind, but the grasses shines more than any others when backlit.

Plant thus the ornamental grasses where you can see them illuminated from the place where you usually find yourself in the garden, for example from your patio.

Here are some good grasses for autumn color, but there are plenty of others too. The Tussock grass, Deschampsia cespitosa, is one of the best grasses to capture the sun's glowing rays; however this grass needs heavy soils with a good water storage capacity to survive more than some few years.

Molinia arundinacea can withstand drought better, but prefers moist soils. Andropogon gerardii and Schizachyrium are drought specialists and can handle very difficult situations without any rain if they are well established.

Molinia arundinacea in Sichtungsgarten Weihenstephan, Germany

Deschampsia cespitosa in München in October

Little Bluestem, Schzachyrium scoparium, in Lahom, Sweden, in late November

Little Bluestem backlit in November, Laholm Citypark

Big Bluestem, Andropogon gerardii, Westpark, München, Germany

Big Bluestem in Sichtungsgarten Herrmannshof, Weinheim, in early October

Switch Grass, Panicum virgatum, in Laholm in late November

Miscanthus sinensis 'Purpurascens' in Westpark in München

Black Walnut Dispatch

2011-12-02T22:41:00.000-08:00

One of the best blogs I follow at the moment is Grounded Design by Thomas Rainer. It is seldom very far between the posts, and it is always worth the waiting anyway.

Unfortunately, the blog is not connected to the Google Friend Connect so there is no box that you can click on and then be able to add and view the blog in the blogroll. Instead, I have subscribed and get posts sent to my inbox. Now, I just today got an email about a new blog that he recommends and as I totally agree with Thomas I also want to tell my readers about it.

The blog is called Black Walnut Dispatch and is just a fun read, written by garden designer Mary Gray. Read it, I guarantee that you will not be disappointed!

Northwind Perennial Farm

2011-11-02T22:14:00.000-07:00

Roy Diblik at the entrance to the show gardens

On the way to Madison we visited Northwind Perennial Farm near Lake Geneva in Wisconsin and Roy Diblik showed us around in the show gardens and the garden shop. Roy Diblik is a devoted perennial grower with a big range of native prairie plants in his assortment.

He is also creating natural plantings and in Millennium Park I adored his yellow tallgrass prairie near the Art Institute of Chicago. I like that Roy is using a method of planting similar to my way of doing it. He makes informal groups or natural mixtures of plants far from the old fashioned block system still used by most garden designers.

The garden shop managed by Colleen Carrigan is also something extra. Despite that we all know that the best way of selling plants is to show the customers how to use them, most plant shops, at least in Europe, still arrange their perennials in long rows and in the most extreme case even according to their Latin names.

Here instead the plants are standing in front of a poster showing a delicate planting. So you get inspired by the picture and will directly find the plants used in the planting on close picking distance. Look at the photos further down and judge yourself. Could it be better?

In the show gardens native plants are mixed with exotics

This is how plants should be arranged in a plant shop

Get inspired, read, pick, buy and plant at home!

The barn behind the the perennials is filled up with old, beautiful stuff

Have a look inside the barn...

Closed due to storm damage

2011-11-02T10:36:00.000-07:00

Creeping Juniper, Juniperus horizontails growing on the sand dunes

The south unit of the Illinois Beach State Park was and is still closed to the public, so unfortunately I couldn't walk around as I expected when we came to this dune biotope the last day of July this summer.

During a short walk close to the resort I at least met the creeping juniper, Juniperus horizontalis, at the sand dunes together with Flowering Spruge, Euphorbia corollata, Purple Prairie Clover, Dalea purpurea, and Cylindrical Blazingstar, Liatris cylindracea.

As I was not allowed to walk in the area I instead drove some few miles north to the Chiwaukee Prairie in Kenosha in Wisconsin. But that's another story.

The shore of Lake Michigan at Illinois Beach in Zion

Flowering Spruge, Euphorbia corollata

Trees and branches are fallen and the area is closed for visitors

The result of the summer storm

Black Locust Savanna at Iron Bridge Prairie

2011-10-30T22:47:00.000-07:00

Black Locust savanna

The savannas in the prairie region mainly consist of Bur Oak, Quercus macrocarpa, but here at the Iron Bridge Prairie at Midewin it is a small savanna or rather open woodland of Black Locust, Robinia pseudoacasia.

The Black Locust is a lovely tree with ornamental branches and a open, loose crown with a scanty leafage that allow some light to pass to the ground and permit a rich understory of grasses and forbs.

The Iron Bridge Prairie at Midewin is fairly new. The restoration of the prairie that once existed here began as late as in 2009. This text is partly taken from an information sign at the prairie. Thanks to many years of cultivating rowcrops as corn and soybeans the soil was rather free from weeds.

Two years ago Midewin staff and volunteers spread 1000 pounds of prairie seeds from 98 different species. This was followed by the planting of 5000 prairie plant plugs.

The first plants to flower are the pioneer plants with rapid growth as Yellow Coneflower, Ratibida pinnata and Wild Bergamot, Monarda fistulosa. They benefit from disturbance and have their best development some few years afterwards.

It will take several years for the majority of the prairie plants to establish their root systems and grow in numbers to out-compete invasive, weedy species.

Like a yellow lake of Coneflowers

Monarda and Ratibida are pioneer members of the prairie ecosystem

Monarda fistulosa, Ratibida pinnata and Coreopsis tripterris

The path through the Black Locust Savanna

Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie

2011-10-29T23:12:00.000-07:00

The Royal Catchfly, Silene regia

The Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie is a prairie reserve of about 78 km²(19,000 acres) of land. It is located on the site of the former Joliet Army Ammunition Plant near Elwood south of Chicago in Illinois.

At the headquarter along the road the Welcome Center is surrounded by plantings of different prairie plants you will be able to find at a tallgrass prairie. Inside the building you can get information about suitable walking trails, buy books and learn about the prairie ecosystem from informative posters.

I decided to take the Grass Frog Temporary Trail and indeed I met a lot of frogs along the path. But fist I visited the seed production fields close to the parking area. There I directly already from long distance discovered the bright red Royal Catchfly, Silene regia. It is a very showy slender, upright plant with unbranched stems and glowing red flowers. The Royal Catchfly is rare in nature, but here i captured it growing at the seed beds.

Other plants cultivated for seed production at Midewin were among others Pale Indian Plantain, Arnoglossum atriplicifolium, Rattlesnake Master, Eryngium yuccifolium, Compass Plant, Silphium laciniatum and Prairie Dropseed, Sporobulus heterolepis.

The Welcome Center with prairie plantings

Inside the Welcome Center

If you look closer to the sign above you'll see the yellow area at the small map in the center. Yellow here indicates the pre-settlement extent of prairie habitat around the year 1920. Today most of this land is converted into corn fields or human infrastructur.

Pale Indian Plantain, Arnoglossum atriplicifolia

Eryngium yuccifolium and Liatris pycnostachya

Seed production of Royal Catchfly, Silene regia

Yellow Coneflower, Ratibida pinnata, at the Grass Frog Temporary Trail

Rudbeckia subtomentosa and Eryngium yuccifolium along the trail

Rudbeckia subtomentosa

Sunflowers

2011-10-28T22:55:00.000-07:00

On the way to the Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie in the end of July earlier this year I passed this field of Sunflowers. Although common sunflower, Helianthus annuus, is a native species of North America and found in nearly every state, the cultivated crop looks quite different from the original wild plants.

However the field with glowing sunflowers reminds us again of the importance of mass planting in garden design. It gives always a really stunning effect with many individuals planted together in big groups and if you use more species in a composition remember to let one of them dominate to receive the best result.

Bulbs and tubers at Peter Korn's Garden

2011-10-02T21:13:00.000-07:00

Peter is showing his botanic garden

Every year Peter Korn arrange a "Bulb Saturday" in his garden south of Gothenburg in Sweden. This year, Saturday 24th of September, he as usual started with a tour in his private botanic garden and there he showed the interested audience his vast collection of rare plants from all over the world, nearly. Peter grows most of the plants in pure sand and gravel and he is very successful in keeping even plants you don't expect would survive on this latitude in the healthiest shape and vigour.

In the rock garden plants from Asia, Europe and North America thrives together

The participants are listening to Peter's experience

Epiolobium fleischeri in the rock garden

One of many Gentiana sinoornata-cultivars in Peter's Korns Garden

Peter Korn in his garden

After the garden tour we all went inside to the Eskilsbygården some few miles away for the afternoon lectures. First Pascal Bruggeman from the Netherlands gave us an interesting slide show about the genus Arisaema, then I delivered a talk about and showed pictures from the tallgrass prairies in North America.

Henrik Zetterlund delivered a speech about bulb meadows and the bulb planting at the botanic garden in Gothenburg there he works and eventually Pascal Bruggeman made a nice finish of the lectures with his talk about Arisaema in the wild.

After the lectures the bulb sale began

Lurie Garden in Millennium Park

2011-09-10T20:49:00.000-07:00

The Millennium Park in Chicago is a part of the extensive Grants Park situated between Lake Michigan and South Michigan Avenue. In Grants Park you will among other attractions find the Art Museum, the spectacular and famous Buckingham Fountain and in the very south of the park the Shedd Aquarium with a very wide range of aquatic animals including sharks, turtles and jellyfishes.

On my daughter’s birthday, July 16th 2004, the Millennium Park in the Northern part of Grants Park, was opened to public. Here you can visit the Lurie Garden made by Kathryn Gustafson, Piet Oudolf and Robert Israel.

It is a 20,000 m²(5 acres) big garden divided into two different parts, the light plate and the dark plate, divided by a formal water channel and a broader pathway. Both sides are planted with perennials and are traversed by several walking paths. The perennial planting design is made by Piet Oudolf from the Netherlands. It is a kind of naturalistic planting although the plants are arranged in distinct blocks rather then spread naturally in a meadow like pattern.

Piet has used a mixture of plants from North America, Europe and Asia. The Salvia River known from Drömparken in Enköping in Sweden is here used in a bigger scale and its movement through the planting breaks the static planting blocks a bit in a very beneficial way.

When we visited the park in the end of July the Echinacea purpurea was blooming as best together with especially Hemerocallis and Allium senescens.

Indian Boundary Prairies

2011-09-03T09:31:00.000-07:00

Stuart Goldman, Prairie Restoration Specialist

Indian Boundary Prairies consist of four high-quality restored prairie remnants in Markham south of Chicago. Although the four prairies are situated close to each other they all look very different and also inhabit various plants and animals.

The Dropseed Prairie is the smallest, the Sundrop Prairie looks most remote and wild, the Painthbrush Prairie needs more restoration and the Gensburg-Markham Prairie has perhaps the most flagrant flower displays of them all. But they are all four worth the visit and they have all a lot of interesting prairie plants to discover.

At the Gensburg-Markham Prairie I met Mr. Stuart Goldman, restoration specialist and responsible for the maintenance of the prairies in Markham. He told me that when his boss started the renovation of the Gensburg-Markham Prairie it was just a waste land with trees and shrubs and not much left of the former prairie biotope.

Today they have converted the land back to a high-quality prairie with a diverse flora. The soil here is a mixture of black soil and sand and the conditions are more or less mesic, but with both dry and moist sections. One third of the prairie is burned every third year, normally during spring.

Among plants I found in bloom at the prairies in Markham I can mention Allium cernuum, Asclepias syriaca, Asclepias verticillata, Dalea candida, Dalea purpurea, Eryngium yuccifolium, Euphorbia corollata, Liatris spicata, Monarda fistulosa, Parthenium integrifolium, Phlox glaberrima, Pycnathemum virginianum, Ratibida pinnata, Rudbeckia hirta, Silphium integrifolium, Silphium laciniatum, Solidago juncea, Verbena hastata and Vernonia fasciculata.

Liatris spicata and Solidago juncea at the Gensburg-Markham Paririe

Stuart in action with instant weeding of invasive unwanted plants

Liatris spicata and Parthenium integrifolium at the Gensburg-Markham Prairie

Vernonia at the Sundrop Prairie

Smooth Ironweed, Vernonia fasciculata

Yellow Coneflower, Ratibida pinnata

Smooth Phlox, Phlox glaberrima

Worled Milkweed, Asclepias verticillata

White Prairie Clover, Dalea candida and Nodding Onion, Allium cernuum

Wild Bergamot, Monarda fistulosa at the Sundrop Prairie

The Prairie Junction in Mariestad

2011-08-26T22:29:00.000-07:00

The Prairie in Mariestad will be growing on all four sides of a four-way junction when it becomes ready on a number of years. The first part was planted two years ago and is now beginning to gradually get established. We also sowed some seeds of certain species to get more dense vegetation. The pictures are from last weekend.

Echinacea, Agastache and Parthenium

Aster pilosus, the Frost Aster

The Yellow Coneflower rules in Laholm

2011-08-24T21:32:00.000-07:00

Yellow Coneflower, Ratibida pinnata, at the savanna in Laholm

Last weekend I first visited the plantings in the city park of Laholm and then continued to the Prairie Junction in Mariestad. That is a prairie planting we are making together with the garden students at the DaCapo School belonging to the University of Gothenburg. Today it is 1 500 sqm in size, but already next month we'll plant another additional 500 sqm.

Here are some pictures from the savanna in Laholm to start with. This time of the year there are many different species in bloom, but the dominating plants now are the Yellow Coneflower, Ratibida pinnata, and Coreopsis lanceolata.

Echinacea purpurea, Coreopsis and Ratibida

Schulenberg Prairie

2011-08-13T13:53:00.000-07:00

The Mallow poppy, Callirhoe involucrata, is a perennial plant with trailing branches covered by a cascade of glowing magenta pink cup shaped flowers. It prefer dry sites, and can be found along roadsides, on hill prairies, dry sand prairies and gravel prairies. Here it is planted at the entrance to Morton Arboretum in Chicago.

We went for at three weeks long trip to the prairies in Illinois and Wisconsin and Morton Arboretum was one of our first stops. Unfortunately that particular day was the hottest on the entire journey with a temperature around 100° Fahrenheit (37-38° C). But still the famous Schulenberg Prairie just had to be visited. It was for sure worth the effort and the loss of 10 bottles of water.

Schulenberg Prairie is known to be one of the oldest planted prairies in the tallgrass prairie region. It is situated on west side of the arboretum and occur after a drive along some nice woodlands and and short walk through a small open savanna.

Savanna landscape on the way to the Schulenberg Prairie

The Oak savanna with a understory of Eupatorium

White Prairie Clover, Dalea candida, and Culver's Root, Veronicastrum virginicum

The tall and very beautiful Pale Indian Plantain, Arnoglossum atriplicifolium

One among few still flowering specimen of Baptisia alba var macrophylla

Wild Bergamot, Monarda fistulosa

Rhus glabra close to the entrence to the Prairie Visitor Center

Oak leaf hydragea, Hydrangea quercifolia inside the park at Morton arboretum

Poppy seeds for the steppe

2011-07-08T03:14:00.000-07:00

Today I spread the last seeds at the steppe roundabout in Lund. Most of the seeds are bought from Jellito Staudensamen in Germany and all arrived earlier this spring except for one item. Papaver croceum 'Wonderland Yellow' or Papaver nudicaule as it's also called, was a rest and came to my post box the other day.

First I mixed the seeds with Vermiculite in a bucket and then I walked around and throwed the mixture all around. I don't know if the poppy will germinate and establish at the calcareous steppe as I never tried it before under this conditions, but that is at least what I hope and expect. Many other seedlings are now emerging in the gravel and especially the Carthusian Pink, Dianthus carthusianorum and Chives, Allium schoenoprasum are abundant just as expected.

The two traffic islands are more densly planted then the roundabout itself.

Most plants are now settled and many tiny seedlings are visable in the gravel

Boosting the Prairie

2011-07-04T02:41:00.000-07:00

Echinacea pallida and Heliopsis helianthoides at the prairie in Alnarp

The Prairie at the Campus in Alnarp was planted in the end of October 2007. It has developed very well and just now the Pale Coneflower, Echinacea pallida flowers together with the oxeye, Heliopsis helianthoides ‘Summer Nights’, and some few still remaining flower heads of the Blanket flower, Gaillardia aristata. The real peak at the prairie is in late July and during August when thousands of Prairie Blazingstars are in bloom.

However we wanted to improve the flower display during early summer and last week we therefore arranged a planting day at the prairie. Helena Karlén, lecturer at the University in Alnarp, had planned the day and invited both some students and staff from the park to participate in the planting.

The following plants were planted last week: Echinacea pallida, Pale Coneflower, Liatris graminifolia, Grassleaf Blazingstar, Monarda fistulosa, Wild Bergamot, Silene regia, Royal Catchfly, Tradescantia ohiensis, Ohio Spiderwort and Bouteloua curtipendula, Sideoats Grama. The Baptisia australis, Blue Wild Indigo, didn´t germinate properly so we had only five plants to put into the ground.

The seeds were sown during the winter

Seedlings of Monarda fistulosa

The plants growing at the Trädgårdslabbet in Alnarp

Time for planting

Planting the prairie - again

The day of planting, June 29th 2011

It is hard to find all pots in the tall grass

It was a hot day in late June just like a true Prairie Summer Day

Echinacera pallida at the prairie in Alnarp

The prairie in the beginning of July 2011

Echinacea, Heliopsis and Gaillardia

Royal Fern and Golden Sedge

2011-06-24T23:42:00.000-07:00

Carex elata 'Aurea' at the shore in Wisley Gardens, England

In May I went with the students from the design course at the University in Alnarp on a trip to England. Shorts resumes from this expedition are given on my Swedish blog, utan stängsel, and some few further reports will be published there later on.

Here I instead center on some certain details from the journey, as the Royal Fern and the Golden Sedge today. This Tufted Sedge, Carex elata, grows naturally in marshes, nutrient rich swamps and along rivers and brooks. It is densely tufted and can during the years create huge tussocks. In gardens we seldom find the true species, instead the golden form, Carex elata 'Aurea' is more commonly cultivated and often named Bowle's Golden Sedge.

The Golden Sedge thrives in any fertile, not too dry, garden soil, but develops best under moister conditions. At Wisley it grows on the edge of the ponds with its roots constantly under the water surface. Rather surprisingly we did find the same sedge at Sissinghurst in a dry and sunny position in the Cottage Garden, clearly showing its broad adaption to different conditions. In dry gravel and sand it will not survive for long however.

The Golden Sedge at Wisley

Carex elata 'Aurea' in the Yellow Garden or Cottage Garden at Sissinghurst

In the woodland at Beth Chatto's garden the Golden Segde developes well

Inger Strömberg and the Royal Ferns at Wisley

The Royal Fern, Osmunda regalis, is native in many parts of the world. It is found in Western and Central Europe, Eastern North America and in Japan. In Sweden it only grows in the south and is always bound to wet habitats. The Royal Fern is primarily found along shady rapids and brooks with flowing water and often it grows so the roots are hold constantly wet.

Osmunda regalis is one of the tallest ferns we can grow in our gardens and it can reach nearly 2 meters if grown in nutrient and moist soils in at least partial shade. Old specimen can even form short trunks as shown in the picture from Sissinghurst below.

The Royal Fern can create low trunks by time, here at Sissinghurst

Osmunda regalis at Vargaslätten in Southern Sweden

A week later

2011-06-16T12:39:00.000-07:00

The Carthusian Pink, Dianthus carthusianorum is now flowering freely

It has gone a week since last shots were discharged. The steppe roundabout is now flowering rather well to been just newly planted, although it of course still has a very thin and sparse appearance. But if you look close into the pictures you'll see that some tiny seedlings already are emerging between the lime stone gravels.

Today flowering plants include Veronica spicata, Prunella grandiflora, Geranium sanguineum, Geranium 'Tiny Monster', Dianthus carthusianorum, Sedum acre and Knautia macedonica 'Mars Midjet'. The first Achillea filipendulina has also begun to show color and that is much earlier then I expected.

When I am writing this humble lines I can hear the rain drops playing at the window-ledge. Excellent, the small and insignificant, tremolous little seedlings need some water support at the dry steppe.

Prunella and Veronica side by side by the side of the street

A lot of seedlings are already growing in the gravels

The Golden Age

2011-06-11T21:02:00.000-07:00

In early June the prairie in Alnarp is predominated by the bright yellow Common Blanketflower, Gaillardia aristata. There are many colorful cultivars on the market, some with semi double flower heads, but here we have used the wild form with brownish red purple disc florets and more or less pure yellow ray florets.

The genus Gaillardia contains about dozen species in North America and they are all suitable for dry and severe conditions. Most of the species are either annuals or short lived perennials and the Common Blanketflower is rated in the latter group so the plants will not survive for decades, although it often self seed abundant.

The golden Common Blanketflowers thrives at dry prairies and meadows

Common Blanketflowers at the prairie in Alnarp, June 11th 2011

The Blanketflower at the prairie last year in June 24th 2010.

Many moderns cultivars have large red banded flower heads

At least some isolated flowers

2011-06-07T21:34:00.000-07:00

Slowly, slowly the plants at the Steppe Roundabout in Lund begin to establish in the harsh and inhospitable environment. Yet the planting is irrigated regularly however and that will continue through the summer, but from now decreased to once a week.

Of course the planting still looks very sparse and scanty and it might be difficult for the viewers to cotton on the design idea and appreciate the display. Unfortunately it will take two or three years before the roundabout will show its real character.

Some few plants have at least started to expose their flowers. In order of appearance this is what has happened. Already when planted in April the Aubrieta 'Blaumeise' was set with flowers, followed by Geranium sanguineum 'Max Frei' and the sanguineum-hybrid Geranium 'Tiny Monster'. Then Knautia macedonica 'Mars Midjet' opened its dark red flowers, next Veronica spicata and Prunella grandiflora. This week Dianthus carthusianorum began to bloom.

Clouds of Perfume

2011-06-06T21:38:00.000-07:00

The Shooting Star, Dodecatheon meadia, grows among the Phlox

While the Prairie Smoke makes the savanna, the Phlox rules in the Woodland in Laholm and turn it into a spectacular color satisfied place. There are two different species of Phlox in the woodland, Phlox divaricata, the Blue Woodland Phlox, also known as Wild Sweet William and Phlox stolonifera, Creeping Phlox, both native to rich woodlands in the Appalachian Mountains in Eastern USA.

Phlox divaricata grows with upright stems crowned by scented flowers in pale blue or white. Phlox stolonifera does not smell much, but it covers the ground well with creeping sterile shots. There are many named cultivars with different shades from bright pink, soft lilac, deep violet to pure white.

Shooting Star, Phlox stolonifera and Phlox divaricata in harmony

Planted in masses the scent from the blue Phlox divaricata is overwhelming

Fothergilla major flowers with its cute whitish wads

Osmunda cinnamomea is in my opinion maybe the most beautiful of all hardy ferns you can grow in your garden. It prefers a moist site in shade or dappled sunlight. Slightly acid to acid conditions and a soil with some organic matter is best.

If you can also find a sheltered place in the woodland with high humidity you have made the best situation for this green fellow. The sterile foliage makes a nice, open wreath and in the middle of it the erect fertile leaves emerges. In the autumn this fertile leaves turn into a striking cinnamon brown shade. Also the sterile leaves have reddish brown fall colors.

Osmunda cinnamomea is shoting in late spring and early summer

Smoke on the Savanna

2011-06-05T22:39:00.000-07:00

Geum triflorum in the beginning of the smoke stage

In the end of May the students at the course in garden design at the University in Alnarp visited the new plantings in the city park of Laholm. The savanna has its best development during summer and early autumn with a beautiful display of Coneflowers, Echinacea and Ratibida, and of course all colorful grasses.

At this time of the year some parts of the savanna are dominated by the Prairie Smoke, Geum triflorum. It is a delicious little plant with deep brownish red flowers followed by mauve seed heads resembling soft, smoky feathers. The plant is creeping slowly by runners and will build up small colonies after some few years. Hopefully they will also be able to spread by seeds.

There are some other plants at the savanna in bloom during late May and early June and the brightest among them is the Golden Alexanders, Zizia aurea. The Canadian Columbine, Aquilegia canadensis is already coloring the savanna red, soon also the flax open its pale blue flowers and then the early summer blooming has started.

Prairie Smoke, Geum triflorum

Zizia aurea is flowering in May at the savanna in Laholm

The Canadian Columbine has hanging flowers in red and yellow

The Pink Rainfall in May

2011-05-25T12:33:00.000-07:00

It always rains in the end of May. A beautiful pink rainfall fills the air and slowly covers paths and plants in Gunnar's Garden and convert it to a soft and delightful place resembling a just outside church post marriage spot.

The pink petals from the Cherry trees gracefully crest the low, pruned box hedge and thus boost and clarify its formal shape. This garden was made by Gunnar Sorte, a popular and skilled teacher at the university in Alnarp. He has now retired and moved back to his home country Norway. But the pinkish rain of the superannuated Cherry blossom still remains in every end of May.

Cherry Blossom Rain in Gunnar's Garden, Alnarp

The last garden of Ulla Molin

2011-05-14T13:52:00.000-07:00

A narrow path through the ivy

Ulla Molin was a trendsetting Swedish designer of small gardens and outdoor spaces. She used a very chaste and strict style with some few distinct plants and often ground covers arranged in big irregular, settled blocks. Among her favorite plants we can find Antennaria, Asarum, Hedera, Buxus and ferns.

This week our students at the garden design course in Alnarp made an excursion to Lund with the aim to study private gardens and the last garden made by Ulla Molin was one of them. In the yard there are a couple of apartment blocks with different small garden spaces. In one of them we found pruned box globes planted directly in the gravel or in elevated concrete cylinders. She has created a unique spatiality in the yard by using very few expressions. “Great design”, the students thought.

Box globes in the garden of Ulla Molin

The entrance to the garden with post boxes on the wall

The small woodland in Tim's garden

The first private garden to visit this day was the garden of Tim Delshammar and his family. Tim who is a landscape architect working as a teacher in Alnarp has made a nice little garden divided into small rooms by hedges and fences. Just behind the front garden it is a small woodland with globes of box and privet. The ground is covered by Asarum, Brunnera, Epimedium, Pulmonaria, ferns and bulbs. The influence from Ulla Molin is obvious.

Inside the garden of Lotte Möller

As a great final of the day we visited the garden of the author and garden writer Lotte Möller. She has through the years made a wonderful, wild and peaceful garden in central Lund. Some of the plants she just allow to grow anywhere in the garden if they can find a place to root by themselves. But despite the garden looks like it was left to grow entirely by its own, it is on the contrary actually carefully maintained and finely attended.

A paradise in Lund - the natural garden of Lotte Möller

Planting the steppe roundabout

2011-04-18T21:13:00.000-07:00

We are now in the middle of the planting of the steppe roundabout with perennials from Ängsäters Perenner in the vicinity of Stockholm, Vaste plantenkwekerij Jan Spruyt in Oost-Vlaanderen in Belgium and from Rijnbeek en Zoon in Boskoop in Netherlands.

First I walk around and drop the plants on place all over the site, following my planting plan and even more my intuition at that certain moment. As I work very much on mode and feeling when I create a biotope planting I always modify the original plan a lot. To be honest I don't even have a true planting plan, but of course I can't inform my clients about that. In that case I would probably not get any missions at all...

Anyhow, the result will be marvelous! Here are some of the plants used in the steppe planting listed.

Achillea filipendulina

Achnatherum calamagrostis

Allium schoenoprasum

Aster amellus

Dianthus carthusianorum

Eremurus stenophyllus

Geranium sanguineum
Geranium 'Tiny Monster'

Melica ciliata

Paradisea liliastrum

Pennisetum orientale

Perovskia atriplicifolia

Phlomis russeliana
Prunella grandiflora
Sedum acre

Stipa barbata

Stipa pennata

Stipa ucrainica

Before the planting started

The arrival of the plants

First the perennials are dropped on place in patterns

The planting starts

Solitude standing

2011-04-13T11:47:00.000-07:00

Yesterday the one and only pine tree, a big Pinus nigra, from Bruns in Germany was planted in the roundabout. All the rocks have also been placed out already so now we are only waiting for the perennials to arrive. Next week the planting will start.

The first rocks are here

2011-04-06T06:39:00.000-07:00

The largest rock is a 5 ton piece of lime stone

Today 13 big boulders came to the roundabout. We directly started to place them out and will continue with that tomorrow. Now I hardly can't wait to get them all on site, so we soon can start with the planting. The solitude tree, a big Pinus nigra, will arrive early next week.

This rock is here turned upside down for best exposure

The Home Town Steppe Roundabout

2011-04-03T07:55:00.000-07:00

Late spring snow? No, just chalky sand!

“No prophet is accepted in his own town” as the modified old Luke saying says. Until now it has been the veracity as I haven’t had any landscape project in my own home town Lund here in the south of Sweden, no, not even a single planting so far.

However now at last I got the mission by the Lund municipality to turn a big roundabout and two traffic islands into a dry calcareous flowering steppe, planted with a wide range of lime loving plants, all originated from Eurasia.

The chalk layer in the roundabout

The preparing has already started. First the former lawn was removed and then a layer of about 10 cm of macadam was spread out all over the soil. Next step was to add about 20 cm of a whitish chalk in the size 0,2-2,0 mm, from Ignaberga. The last top layer consists of about 15-20 cm of calcareous macadam, 0-25 mm, from Falköping.

Next week some big rocks and boulders are going to be placed out at strategic places in the roundabout, companied by smaller but still big stones.

In the Easter week we so will plant the roundabout with many different perennials and grasses. I’ll of course come back here to report about the result after finished planting.

Now the last layer of calcareous gravel is placed out

Wonderful trunk design

2011-03-25T12:44:00.000-07:00

Later this year both the Wild Forest and the Foggy Forest will be created in the city park of Laholm. For that purpose I yesterday visited Laholm and my aim this time was to find suitable trunks of old trees to "decorate" the park with. Together with the city gardener Stefan Persson and his staff I went to a local wood artist in Ränneslöv.

The artist's garden appeared to be a gorgeous place on Earth! It was literally crowded with wonderful old logs and other big wooden parts from a wide range of tree species and in different stages ot decay.

Here we later will pick out wood for the construction of a Nature Tower in the Wild Forest and chiefly find big trunks to dig down into the ground or even just drop around in the future forests as dead wooden monuments. Close to the trunks it will be planted climbing plants as Schizophragma, Schisandra and Celastrus.

The dead wood is very important for many different species of insects as discussed earlier on this blog, see Living dead wood from February. The wood will be an appreciated playground for many larvae inside the trunks and of great pleasure for woodpeckers hunting them from the outside.

The artist Anders Ölund and his storage of wood in the small village of Ränneslöv

Eventually the spring arrived

2011-03-22T11:46:00.000-07:00

Suddenly the weather changed from cold and harsh, grim and gloomy into a wonderful, sunny and delightful spring day with temperatures above even 15 degrees Celsius. Today the spring arrived to Alnarp for real.

All the early spring flowers were just waiting for this holy moment and they started rapidly with no delay to emerge from bulbs and tubers. Some of them were of course already up over the ground before just to look around and they now quickly opened their perianths as fully as possibly.

Leucojum vernum prefers moist sites in semi shade

Eranthis hiemalis is showing all intimate parts they have without any trace of timidity

Crocus tommasinianus belongs to the earliest in the genus to appear

The Hamamelis cultivars have already been flowering for some time

The Mediterranean World in Alnarp

2011-03-19T21:53:00.000-07:00

Camellia in one of the greenhouses

The students at the course Indoor Garden Design at the University in Alnarp in southern Sweden have three small greenhouses as laboratory units for their studies in plant knowledge and design. As the Mediterranean world has a tremendous amount of interesting and useful plants for city spaces under glass, the students has a huge range of plants to learn about and to chose from for their indoor garden design projects.

Here the students are making the green plant wall more complete. They are planting Selaginella, Saxifraga stolonifera and other plants in the empty pockets of the wall cover. Pest control is made by releasing predators in the greenhouses. Checking leaves to identify insects and mites is an important task.

The bloody history of whaling

2011-03-14T22:31:00.000-07:00

After the visit at the zoological museum in Oslo I took a train to Sandefjord further west and installed me at the hotel Atlantic.

The hotel showed up to be a virtual museum of whaling as well. Sandefjord is well known as an important town during the whaling age in Norway.

Harpoons and whaling equipment at the hotel Atlantic

The whaling passway between the foajé and the dining room

Whaling is still there

From 1850 and onwards a big number of whaling ships from Sandefjord were sealing and hunting whales in the Arctic Ocean and along the coast.

The city experienced a tremendously prosperous economical period the next 100 years and in the early 1950's the whale trade reached its climax with a big fleet of factory ships and nearly hundreds of whalers.

Waiting for the right positon for the killing shot

From the mid 1950's whaling was gradually decreasing. At this point the numbers of whales already had been reduced dramatically and the fight against whaling had increased constantly. In the late 1960's the last whaling expedition from Sandefjord occurred.

The whaling monument in Sandefjord

Beside the exhibitions in the hotel there are also a true a whaling museum in Sandefjord and a huge statue called Hvalfangstmonumentet showing whaling in action.

Although killing whales is history in Sandefjord today, whaling still exist in Norway, Iceland and Japan. The rest of the world, including me, wants to see an end of this bloody industry as soon as possible. There are several international organizations you can join in order to support the fight against whaling. Do that! Save the whales for the future!

This evening I spend at Gjennestad gartnerskole and delivered another lecture on the theme Biotope design in your garden for the garden society Staudeklubben Vestfold. It was a very cozy and well arranged meeting with a happy and interested audience. The threatened marine biotopes of the whales we never discussed however.

Biotope design in Norway

2011-03-09T03:57:00.000-08:00

Last week I was invited to Norway in order to deliver two lectures about biotope design in parks and gardens. The first evening I visited Blomstevenners klubb in Oslo, a society with members of house & garden owners interested in gardening, flowers and all kind of plants on a rather advanced level. It turned out to be a cozy and amusing evening, with many questions and even a tasty cup of tea afterwards.

The members of the Blomstervenners klubb are gathering and chatting before the lecture

After the lecture we had coffee and tea and a lottery was hold with indoor plants as prizes

The next day I took a short walk from my hotel situated close to the railway station through the central parts of Oslo to the Botanical Garden and the Zoological Museum. This time of the year the garden was covered by a thick layer of snow, but inside the small greenhouses it of course was much warmer.

In the outdoor garden I found a tree with an interesting label on the trunk. It was obvious that it was a maple tree, Acer platanoides, but at the label it instead was written Oxyporus populinus. This is the Latin name of a fungus called mossy maple polypore in English and lönnticka in Swedish. It attacks living trees and particularly maples. According to the benefit of dead wood for the biodiversity in the garden discussed earlier on this blog it is positive to find fungi labeled as well, not only the trees themselves.

The Botanical garden and the Zoological museum are ruled by the University of Oslo

Mossy Maple Polypore, Oxyporus populinus on a Acer platanoides

Selaginella is here representing the Devon era

In the palm house the plants are arranged according to their evolutionary development, with examples from different geological eras. Among others there are species of genus as Equisetum, Dicksonia and Cycas.

The old Victoria waterlily greenhouse

Amorphophallus konjac in the Victoria house

In the zoological museum has several biotopes been created behind glass. All geographical regions of animals are represented, sometimes even with more than one biotope. Of course the show cases are too crowded with animals to look natural, but the displays are well made and also very interesting to watch.

Living dead wood

2011-02-21T20:52:00.000-08:00

Today I'm going to deliver a lecture at the university in Alnarp about the benefit of dead trees in parks and gardens. Nowadays most people normally appreciate their trees more for staying alive rather than turning old, unhealthy and eventually dead for some strange reasons.

However for the biodiversity in your garden dead trees or very old and half passed away trees are even more important. There are for instance only about 30 different species of beetles depending on still living Scotch Pine (Pinus sylvestris) for their survival, but more than 300 species need dead pines to complete their life cycles, and more than 500 different species of beetles are living on dead oak trees (Quercus robur). Dead trees are thus actually more important in your garden, at least for insects and other invertebrates.

How can we then involve more of dead wood in the garden design in a natural and pleasant way? Well, here are some pictures from a patio I made in Gothenburg for an exhibition some years ago. A lot of dead branches and stumps are placed among the plants and in my opinion the planting looks even more naturally untidy and very beautiful with all the mosses growing on the dead wood. The planting was made just some few weeks before I took the photos, but still it already looked rather settled.

The wood is dead! Long live the dead wood in your garden! Don't you agree? The insects certainly do.

African grasses

2011-02-12T05:33:00.000-08:00

Fountain Grass, Pennisetum setaceum

Although there are many native grasses in East Africa they are seldom used in garden or landscape design. Some foreign grasses can sometimes be found in parks and gardens, but you still see even them rather rarely.

Here however the indigenous Pennisetum setaceum is used at the entrance to Mamba Village in Nairobi. Pennisetum setaceum is native to open, more or less dry habitats in eastern and central Africa, Middle East and further east, but is introduced to many other parts of the world and is now well spread in southern Europe, South Africa, southern North America, Hawaii and many other places. The Fountain Grass is a perennial plant but not very hardy, so in colder areas when it is grown as an ornamental bedding plant it is treated as an annual.

Rhynchelytrum, the Natal Grass or Champagne Grass grows here in a naturalistic, meadow style planting in a private garden in Karen in Nairobi

Grass as a forage plant is more common...

The Kapok

2011-01-22T01:59:00.000-08:00

The Kapok tree, Ceiba pentandra, is a tropical tree native to northern South America extending to Mexico in the north. It belongs to the Bombacaceae family (today often included in the Malvaceae family).

The Kapok is an extremely fast growing tree and can reach 60-70 meters (200-230 ft). It has a very substantial trunk up to 3 m (10 ft) in diameter. The trunk and most of the branches are often, like this tree shows, crowded with large, prickly thorns.

When the tree has reached the adult stage it produces several hundred of flowers followed by big, oval seed pods. The pods contain seeds surrounded by a fluffy, yellowish white fiber that resembles cotton. However it is difficult to spin, so instead it is often used as filling in pillows, mattresses and similar stuff.

In tropical and subtropical regions the tree is grown as an ornamental. Here it is planted in a private garden in Karen in Nairobi

The Rift Valley Euphorbias

2011-01-06T01:21:00.000-08:00

Cacti belonging to the Cactaceae family are originally found only in the new world, although many species are introduced and naturalized in suitable parts of Europe and Africa. In arid biotopes in Africa many other kind of plants have developed the same succulens strategi and look rather similar to the true cacti of America.

At the slopes down to the Rift Valley in Kenya an huge arborescent euphorbia dominates the landscape, the Euphorbia candelabrum.

On the way down to Rift Valley from NorthEast

Euphorbia candelabrum is endemic to East Africa

A group of giant euphorbias

The Euphorbia candelabrum are scattered along the hill side

Thorny Acacias

2011-01-02T23:56:00.000-08:00

There are some 1200 different species of Acacia distributed all over the tropics and in warm temparete areas. They are found in Australia, Africa as well as in America and preferently on dry grounds. In Africa they are very important trees and shrubs of the savanna and the low bush steppe. Although the African species all are more or less thorny their leaves are still eaten by many animals. The giraffa has specilaized in feeding on Acacia species and with its long and flexible tongue it can avoid the thorns rather well.

The Whistling Acacia, Acacia drepanolobium, is a common small shrub of the East African dry savannas and steppes. It wears long whitish spines and is adorned with dark galls in the size of brussel sprout heads. The galls are hollow inside and have several small openings in the surface. They are found all over the branches. The hollow insides are inhabited by aggressive ants of the genus Crematogaster, a world wide genus sometimes called acrobat ants. The ants form a mutually beneficial partnership together with the acacia as the insects protect the plant against browsing animals by very unpleasant bites on lips and tongue, while the shrub provides housing for the ants inside the galls.

The Flat Topped Acacia, Acacia tortilis, is an abundant, extremely drought tolerant tree from grasslands and savannas in East Africa. It is a medium size tree with a height of about 15 m and has small white aromatic smelling flowers in dense clusters. The Flat Topped Acacia is an important source for shade for resting mammals and the leaves and buds are eaten by many animals. It is also used as firewood and for charcoal production by the local people.

A Private Roundabout

2010-12-31T01:43:00.000-08:00

This cold and snowy winter I decided to spend one month in Kenya. So far I dont regret that at all. Here below you see some pictures from a little roundabout ourside a private garden planted with many different plants including cabbage plants, Tulbaghia violacea, Bougainvillea and Lavandula.

The Allium structure

2010-11-30T11:24:00.000-08:00

Allium is a very useful genus in nearly all kind of garden design. Especially the species with big rounded flower heads are good contrast makers among plants with different structure. Here are three nice examples from England.

Allium together with the delicate Salvia.

Allium goes wild with Ranunculus repens

Allium and the later flowering Hylotelephium

When you plan your perennial border you might want it to flower from early spring to early winter if possible. In that case, however, the border will probably never reach a real peak with sumptuous blooming. Instead it is better to put effort on a certain period of the year, for instance from late summer to early autumn.

Allium aflatunense and its cultivars are also very useful as a late spring or early summer element in such late summer flowering plantings.

Early winter on the prairie

2010-11-26T06:53:00.000-08:00

Despite it is still November the winter already has bed down most of the park in Alnarp in soft white. We seldom have snow here this time of the year and if it comes at all it is normally during late December or early January. But today all trees are nicely covered by ice and snow and at the prairie the seed heads look even more beautiful in contrast to the white element.

Rattle snake master, Eryngium yuccifolium and Canada Wild Rye, Elymus canadensis

Inside the green cave

2010-11-11T04:59:00.000-08:00

Inside the cave, a newly made green playground for the kids

Beside all big scale garden ideas in the city park of Laholm we also can find some smaller ones. This is the Kid's Cave, a children’s hiding and playing place inside a group of old Rhododendron. The pruning of the interior of the cave has created a smooth and exciting playground for curious kids.

The entrance to the Kid's Cave in the city park of Laholm

The woodland is turning color

2010-10-11T11:52:00.000-07:00

The woodland in Laholm is now changing from dull green to bright fall colors and most trees and shrubs are turning yellow, red and orange. Even the perennials want to join the color parade. The Foam flowers, Tiarella, goes brownish orange and so does the Gillenia, while the Geranium maculatum 'Vickie Lynn' turns more bright orange red.

Nyssa sylvatica, the Tulepo tree

At the moment one small Tulepo tree, Nyssa sylvatica, is glowing clear red while others just started to convert. The Honey locusts, Gleditsia triacanthos, have already dropped most of their bright yellow leaves and the Red maples, Acer rubrum, are only in the early stage of the color explosion.

The woodland in Laholm was planted in 2008 and is a part of the city park under development. New exciting departments are added constantly, now latest an amazing spring bulb planting and next spring we are creating a European meadow with both acid and more calcareous habitats with a huge diversity of meadow plants.

Tiarella, Gillenia and Acer rubrum

Acer rubrum 'Scanlon' just outside the woodland

The Spring Slope

2010-10-07T21:30:00.000-07:00

The Spring Slope starts here and follows the pathway to the left

Next week it's time for the first part of the Spring Slope in the city park of Laholm to be created. This is an area in the park there it formerly was a rough lawn beneath old beech trees. When next spring is here it instead has turned into a wonderful carpet of blooming bulbs and other spring flowers in white, blue and violet shades.

As dominating bulb for the slope we have chosen the dark blue Siberian squill, Scilla siberica. She will be accompanied by many other bulbs and corms like the true wild form of the italian Spring crocus Crocus vernus v. albiflorus, the Grecian windflower, Anemone blanda, many different cultivars of the Wood anemone, Anemone nemorosa, the Striped squill, Puschkinia scilloides and a lot of other lovely spring flowering plants.

I'm already longing for next spring.

The Annual Perennial Course in Alnarp

2010-09-22T21:54:00.000-07:00

In early September we arranged the annual three days course about perennials in Alnarp again. This course deals with every aspect of the use of perennials in gardens, parks and city spaces and is intended mainly for professional landscapers, staff from municipalities, garden journalists and people from nurseries and Garden Centers.

The second course day the participants are given three alternative places there they are supposed to chose one and make a planting plan with suitable perennials. They have to consider both aesthetic values as well as the plant habitat issue.

The coffee breaks are not only cozy interruptions of the lectures but also important moments of discussions and an opportunity to create new contacts.

The last day we focused mainly on habitats and biotope plantings. Peter Korn delivered a very much appreciated lecture about natural steppes and steppes as a garden theme. Hopefully the participants left the course with fresh inspiring ideas and new suitable knowledge.

If you want information about the most recent perennial course you can find that on the blog "utan stängsel" at the page Stora Perennkursen.

The Star of the Month: Prairie Blazingstar

2010-08-23T22:06:00.000-07:00

The real peak time for the prairie in Alnarp is now in August. At the moment hundreds and hundreds of Gayfeathers or Prairie Blazingstars (Liatris pycnostachya) color the whole planting area in lilac shades.

In natural habitats in North America the Prairie Blazingstar normally prefer mesic to moist and even seasonal wet sites although it sometimes can be found also on fairly dry ground. The mature plants can resist drought well, but young seedlings are more vulnerable.

In Alnarp it grows on a fertile but rather dry soil together with Rattlesnake Master (Eryngium yuccifolium), Upland White Aster (Aster ptarmicoides), Ohio Goldenrod (Solidago ohiensis), Smooth Oxeye or False Sunflower (Heliopsis helianthoides) and some other typical Prairie forbs and of course grasses as Little Bluestem (Schizachyrium scoparium), Prairie Dropseed (Sporobolus heterolepis) and Sideoat Grama (Bouteloua curtipendula).

Ohio Goldenrot (Solidago ohiensis)

Browneyed Susan (Rudbeckia triloba) and Little Bluestem (Schizachyrium scoparium)

Here the Blazingstars flourish in harmony with Rattlesnake Masters (Eryngium yuccifolium)

Prairie Blazingstar (Liatris pycnostachya)

Liatris pycnostachya in full bloom

A Great Park in Vlaams-Brabant

2010-08-16T22:24:00.000-07:00

De Tuinen van Hoegaarden is the city park of the little village Hoegaarden in the province Vlaams-Brabant east of Brussels in Belgium. If you travel in this part of Europe a visit in the park is a must. However remember that the park is still under a process of change.

The head gardener Geert Derom and his staff has already made a great work with renovating and developing the old park and still much are on the schedule for the future. So the park will be even more worth the visit in the next couple of years I suppose. In my opinion the staff has to increase in number though, to be able to manage the maintenance of this big and diverse park even in the future.

Here I now publish a cavalcade of pictures to show some of the interesting parts from this wonderful park.

The most interesting plot in the park at the moment is a newly planted prairie inspired garden made by Jan Spruyt. Here the grass Calamagrostis x acutiflora 'Karl Foerster' is dominating and interplay well with a great number of sun loving perennials and other ornamental grasses.

The Private Prairie Style Garden

2010-08-12T12:58:00.000-07:00

At the front garden Jan Spruyt has two square formed prairie style plantings surrounded by a formal lawn

In the great private garden of Jan and Anna Spruyt we admired the large prairie style planting just outside the big greenhouses with the huge tomatoes.

The big prairie style planting in Jan and Anna Spruyt's garden

Vernonia arkansana `Mamuth', the Ironweed has sturdy stem and violet flowers

The Swamp Milkweed, Asclepias incarnata, prefers moist or wet sites

The Pale Coneflower is followed by the Largeleaf Phlox, Phlox amplifolia

The Pinnate Prairie Coneflower, Ratibida pinnata

Prairie inspired plantings

2010-08-12T00:53:00.000-07:00

On several places in the nursery Jan has created small plots with very expressive perennial plantings. Here there are some excellent combinations especially with structural perennials together with soft, sweeping grasses.

All plantings are made in a very beautiful naturalistic style. Jan use to call them all for Prairie plantings and there we have a small disagreement. In my opinion a true Prairie planting has to consist of or at least be dominated by plants from North America and preferably from the Prairie itself of course and not be a mixture with European or Asian plants.

Here the the Red Feather Clover, Trifolium rubens, earlier made this spot glowing hot.

If possible I also want it to mirror the ecosystem of the prairie, there all species has different roles. The typical prairie grasses are important to use because of their ability to penetrate and nearly totally occupy the upper layer of the soil. This makes it more difficult for unwanted plants to take root. They also grow extremely deep into the ground and can therefore tolerate long periods of severe drought.

The American Pale Coneflower, Echinacea pallida, does well

with the Giant Feather Grass, Stipa gigantea, from the Old World

There are so many true Prairie plants to choose between so it is really no need for the use of plants from other regions. But still Jan’s plantings of course are very enjoyable and nicely composed in all other aspects. Although Jan is a nursery man by profession he has a great talent in garden design as well. However I prefer to call his plantings for naturalistic or prairie inspired plantings. I hope he can forgive me for that...

Outside a big tank for storing water for irrigation a little bigger spot with a really nice prairie style vegetation can be found.

Jan Spruyt - Van der Jeugd

2010-08-08T02:36:00.000-07:00

Geert picked us up at the airport of Brussels and drove us to Mostenveld in Buggenhout there we met Jan Spruyt inside his office. After a cup of tea Jan kindly showed us around at the huge nursery area.

BVBA Jan Spruyt - Van der Jeugd is the biggest perennial nursery in Belgium, around 6 ha of perfect maintained growing perennials, both well known market busters and seldom seen rare collecting plants.

As his son Nik nowadays runs the nursery, Jan himself can concentrate more on selection of new perennial cultivars and his other big passion – naturalistic prairie inspired plantings.

Jan Spruyt and some of his Echinacea seedlings

On the trial fields in Mostenveld there are many interesting seedlings from a big range of different perennials. Jan has a great interest in American prairie and meadow plants and he tries to select forms with better and sturdier growth habit. Many new forms of Echinacea purpurea are also growing in the beds and some of them can certainly be an improvement of the existing already vast assortment.

Some few years ago the company invested in a new planting machine

The extensive assortment of Heuchera

Lilium 'Landini', bruinzwart en erg mooi

I wonder if this is the darkest form among all Lily cultivars? The flowers of Lilium 'Landini' are anyhow tinted in a very dark blackish brown shade and the stems are very dark as well. It grows about 70-90 cm tall and flowers in early summer. Something to dream wet Lily dreams about. Have you ever seen a darker one?

The beds for shade loving plants are shaded by nets

Perennials ready packed to be delivered to a Garden Centre – and these will be very easily sold, don’t you agree?.

De Tuinen van Hoegaarden

2010-07-27T11:59:00.000-07:00

Next week I’m going to Belgium together with my dear wife and our sweet baby boy to meet Jan Spruyt and Geert Derom.

Jan Spruyt runs a very special perennial nursery of great interest in Mostenveld. The assortment is vast and really exciting. I’m also excited myself to finally see the nursery in real life I have heard so much about and even bought plants from to several of my former projects.

Prairie inspired planting by Jan Spruyt

I’ve known Jan for many years and the first time we met was at one of our ISU-meetings, in Germany I think it was. Jan also works with a kind of naturalistic plantings, prairie inspired, with many different perennials and ornamental grasses. These I’m also very curious about.

Geert Derom I don’t know that well yet but also him I’ve met through ISU. He is the head gardener, or Hoofdtuinman as it is called in Dutch or rather Vlaams, of a very interesting park in Hoegaarden in Belgium there I am supposed to create a model garden in the future. In the park, DeTuinen van Hoegaarden, there are already many different model gardens and borders as the shade garden, the exotic garden, the pond garden, the bulb garden and many others. Jan Spruyt has also made a prairie inspired garden there. I’ll come back with a report and hopefully nice pictures from the trip.

In the meantime you can read about the nursery and park here below and I also added a link to ISU, the International Perennial Union.

Jan Spruyt Nursery http://www.vasteplant.be/

Internationale Stauden-Union http://www.isu-perennials.org/site/index.cfm

De Tuinen van Hoegaarden http://www.detuinenvanhoegaarden.be/

Grasses in the winter from one of Jan Spruyt's plantings

The Sea Spot in Trosa

2010-07-25T00:22:00.000-07:00

Normally a new planting needs at least two seasons to establish, but sometimes it can happen very fast. The picture above is from Trosa municipality just south of Stockholm in Sweden. At the little city square in tiny Trosa I renewed two existing vegetation spaces last year. A small area with old trees and suffering lawn below them was turned into a lovely woodland plot with benches and magnificent spring aspects from the understory of flowering herbs and azaleas.

An even much smaller spot was before a planting with some low shrubs – if I remember right the Shrubby Cinquefoil, Potentilla fruticosa. Nothing wrongs with that of course, however a bit boring. This space was converted into a planting inspired by the shore nearby the city and named the Sea spot.

It was made in the spring 2009 and already in late summer the same year it had settled rather well. The photos are from the end of October last year. The area was first covered by a layer of 20-25 cm sand and then we added round boulders, stones and pebbles. Both true sea shore plants as Sea Wormwood (Artemisia maritima) and Sea Holly (Eryngium maritimum) were used as well as fake ones as Pearly Everlasting (Anaphalis triplivervis) and Spear Grass (Stipa calamagrostis). As late fall aspect the European Michaelmas Daisy (Aster amellus ‘Veilchenkönigin’) was used.

The other planting at the square, the Pocket Woodland, needs however at least all this year too to turn really enjoyable. I’ll come back to this place as soon as I have pictures to show.

Stipa calamagrostis or Achnatherum calamagrostis

Monarda for dry sites

2010-07-15T13:36:00.000-07:00

Today I again visited Laholm and the famous citypark to discuss its continuing development. Later this year we are going to create a meadow for biodiversity and a planting beneath big beech trees with great spring aspects from bulbs and other early flowering perennials. Two amazing plantings for the future.

At the savanna in Laholm now the Wild Bergamot, Monarda fistulosa, recently has began to bloom. This Monarda is suitable for dry sites and tolerates water stress much better then the common garden cultivars. They belong all to the Monarda didyma-group or are hybrids between these two species. Monarda didyma prefer instead moist or even wet conditions.

The Pale Coneflower, Echinacea pallida, thrives well together with the Wild Bergamot

The Prairie Junction in Mariestad

2010-07-14T22:57:00.000-07:00

Planted in late autumn last year this new prairie isn't really established yet. Except from some grasses (Andropogon, Schizachyrium and Sporobolus) most plants at least have survived the long and harsh winter. But will they stand the drought? When I visited the planting it appeared to be very dry in the root zone and most plants were suffering from the lack of water. Unfortunately it is not possibly to irrigate this planting so let's hope for some really rainy days soon. We also planted a lot of seeds among the perennials, but not many of these seeds seem to have taken root.

The whole area of 1500 square meters (0.4 acres) was before we started to plant covered by a layer of about 15-20 cm of macadam. This to create a good drainage and more important to prevent the planting from weed seeds in the existing soil under the macadam layer.

I guess we have to wait two or three seasons before this prairie planting has established properly. But I do think it then will be a real stunning show place so it is for sure worth all waiting.

The plants are suffering from the terrible scarcity of water

Most planted perennials have survived, but where are all the expected seedlings?

A very dry setting

2010-07-13T03:40:00.000-07:00

This dry habitat planting in Sävsjö was made in 1999 and extended in 2001. The mixture of gravels, sand and soil were put directly on an existing lawn. Only at the edges of the planting area the lawn was removed. Beside stable perennials we also used some short lived perennials and some true hoppers, biennials like the Verbascum bombiferum. Today 10 and 8 years later the planting still is okay. As this was meant to be a dynamic planting it of course looks very different nowadays compared to its early stages.

The planting is never irrigated, except from the first establishing year of course. If a plant species can't stand the conditions and die it will not be replaced. The hard world of dynamics rules!

Lychnis calcedonica, a short lived perennial has increased in number

The Alpine Thistle, Eryngium alpinum excist in some few specimen

Traffic Islands

2010-07-10T14:17:00.000-07:00

Dry and colorful traffic island spot with Nepeta and Origanum

Let's stay in Sävsjö for a while. Not far from the calcareous slope we can find some rather interesting traffic islands. They were all planted in 1998 and are still in very good shape although they do look a bit different today.

The sunny shore theme with Crambe, Artemisia and Geranium

A steppe style planting embrace the parking area

Along the head street in the small little city we planted several small plots and close to parking places also some bigger plantings. At the sunny side of the street all plantings were created as dry sites with high amount of gravels and pebbles mixed into the soil. At the shady part instead woodland style plantings with Hosta, ferns and other shade perennials were choosen.

Good contrast makers here are Stachys, Origanum and Nepeta.

Hosta and variegated Aegopodium in the shade

The Calcareous Slope

2010-07-08T13:15:00.000-07:00

We used 40 tons of limestone, both boulders and gravel, when we in 2005 created a calcareous slope in acidic Sävsjö in the middle of the county of Småland in southern Sweden. Until yesterday I had never visited this landscaping project during the peak flowering period in June and July. Six years have passed and nowadays most of the bare stones and gravel are covered by vegetation. Some planted species have gone completely extinct, while others have increased enormously in number. Most abandoned is the soft Hairy Melic (Melica ciliata).

All plants chosen for this limestone planting are true lime lovers and they all tolerate very high pH.This time of the year the slope is filled up mainly by the lovely Carthusian Pink (Dianthus carthusianorum), the free flowering Pincushion Flower (Scabiosa columbaria) and the colorful Broad leaved Thyme (Thymus pulegioides). Other species that can be found in bloom in July are a rose form of Bloody Cranesbill (Geranium sanguineum), St Bernhard's Lily (Anthericum liliago) and Viper's Bugloss (Echium russicum).

Broad leaved Thyme (Thymus pulegioides)

Melica ciliata, commonly called Hairy Melic or Silky Spike Melic

together with Carthusian Pink (Dianthus carthusianorum)

Pincushion Flower (Scabiosa columbaria) and the Viper's Bugloss (Echium russicum)

Carthusian Pink and Pincushion Flower

The single flower of Carthusian Pink, Dianthus carthusianorum

Landscaping project tour

2010-07-06T06:30:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow am going for a two days landscaping tour to visit some of my latest projects. Especially I'm interested to see the development of the big prairie planting in Mariestad. It was planted in late autumn last year and I haven't been there since then, so of course I'm very curious about the result. The prairie will increase in size by stages and the next planting is planned to take place during autumn 2011. Yes, I will give a report here when I'm back of course.

Planting the prairie in Mariestad 2009

The Prairie in Alnarp

2010-07-04T21:31:00.000-07:00

The prairie in Alnarp was created during 2007 and planted in late fall in cooperation with the students at the University (SLU). It is a plot of 1000 square meters (0.25 acres) with solely native prairie plants from the true prairie in Mideast US, apart from one exception, the Common Camas, Camassia quamash from the northern Pacific states.

In late spring the prairie is tinted blue by 10 000 Camassia. In late summer instead the gayfeathers (Liatris) are predominating together with scattered groups of Rattlesnake Masters (Eryngium yuccifolium), False Sunflowers (Heliopsis helianthoides), the Upland White Asters (Aster ptarmacoides) and some others.

All shoots are from August 2009

The Honey Locust Savanna

2010-07-04T11:38:00.000-07:00

In 2008 we created two biotope plantings in the city park of Laholm inspired by the biomes from North Eastern North America. The Honey Locust Savanna with sparse groves of trees and a understory of savanna and prairie forbs is located on a west facing slope in the park.

Linum perenne and Coreopsis lanceolata

Penstemon smalli and Coreopsis lanceolata

All pictures above are from last year, 2009

This year the flax is overwhelming

First contribution

2010-07-04T09:12:00.000-07:00

Welcome to this new blog about naturalistic landscaping. It's my aim to publish pictures and brief essential information from my landscaping projects. I also hope my blog will cause an eagerness and increased curiosity about biotope design and dynamic plantings among gardeners and landscapers all over the world.

Blue flax, Linum perenne in peak bloom in the city park