Poppy seeds for the steppe

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

A week later

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

At least some isolated flowers

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.

The last garden of Ulla Molin

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

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

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

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

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