White borscht at Tage Andersen's Gunillaberg

The Gunillaberg estate was built in the late 17th century by Johan Printz, who named the manor house after his mother Gunilla. He went on to become the third governor of New Sweden, the Swedish colony in that is now the state of Delaware in the USA.

 

While driving back to Stockholm from the west coast of Sweden, I realized that we'd be passing Tage Andersen's Gunillaberg in Bottnaryd, just before the city of Jönköping. Despite the long drive home, we decided to drop by to see if we could get an early lunch at Tage's café, and of course, to see his creations "live" for the first time.

 

Now, there can't be many "garden people" in Sweden who don't know about Tage and his work, but for those who do not, he is a real renaissance man form Denmark. Originally trained as a pastry chef, he has diversified his artistic portfolio to include flower arrangements, furniture, sculpture and other art installations. He's even published several books about his work and thoughts, and is the proprietor of a floral boutique with a museum in Copenhagen. In Sweden, he managed the well-known gardens by Rudolph Abelin at Norrviken in Båstad for a couple of years.

 

Tage Andersen bought Gunillaberg in 2008, and has since transformed this late 17th century manor and its gardens into a distinctively Tage-style gesamtkunstwerk. Despite being a Renaissance man in sprit, Baroque is definitely more his style - down to the artistic, old-fashioned clothes he carries (of course I shouldn't comment on looks, but he looks a little like a mixture of Rembrandt and a mystical spirit from the forests - in the most positive way). And his artworks and installations - dramatic, twisted, voluptuous, always with a personal touch to them. While strolling through the house and gardens, it felt like everything there was touched by a magic wand, and turned into something that was "more" than it should have been - a bit magical, and definitely Tage-like. One of a kind, he really is.

 

While I really wanted to have a chat with Tage, he seemed a little bit stressed and was really busy with serving lunch to the unexpectedly many guests - something that the very friendly young lady at the café mentioned while doing exactly the same. So we ate our delicious white borscht-like soups and finished with coffees and Tage's specialty, "karamelkrans" (caramel covered flaky round pastry - extremely sweet and tasty), completely happy with having just added another 1.5 hours to our already long journey back to Stockholm.  

 

One of the outbuildings, now with a shop that sells a small selection of Tage's artwork and books.

Ceramics with forms reminding of flower bulbs, surrounded by large flower containers on rusty platforms - Tage often uses rusty steel as material in his works.

Large containers with Agapanthus and Camellias on the backside of the manor house.

 Tage arranges art exhibitions inside the house - and even the floor is painted in a voluptuous pattern, like Baroque gone crazy... (while it still manages to be in harmony with its surroundings!).

A huge chess set placed on ceramic tiles...

The focal point of the front garden is an art installation in rusted steel (by Tage); it is sitting in a small, round pool surrounded by flower meadow - a lovely contrast, and quite unconventional for a formal Baroque garden....  

A fanciful bosquet made of rusty steel and covered with passifloras - there are two of them, the other can be seen behind the square pool. They magically transport you to the gardens of Renaissance and Baroque, while still being surrounded by the dark Swedish forests.

 

A lovely passiflora variety - I have no idea which one. Purple seemed to be another favorite of Tage's...

Pathways with artwork - and even the larches looked like they could come alive in the dusk of Swedish summer nights.

A large green house is used for concerts.

The scene inside the green house - what a lovely experience it would be to come here for a concert... Maybe next summer.

 Even the chicken coops were fancifully artistic - and very rusty.

 

 And one last wink before leaving - even the entrance is a lovely combination of strictly formal and wonderfully twisted.

 

To see more of Tage's wonderful flower arrangements and artwork, look at the "Gallery" pages on his website (which also contains opening times and a map for finding Gunillaberg): http://www.tage-andersen.com/index.html 

Gunnebo, again

The little Gunnebo Castle called, again - its powers of seduction (not least in form of delicious lunches served in the kitchen garden....) are still quite potent, it seems.

 

As I've written earlier, the little castle of Gunnebo together with its gardens really is a love story gone awfully wrong. Like a greedy mistress, it seduced and held its masters captured until all their means were exhausted, eventually driving them to bankruptcy and destitution. The story is touching - who doesn't love a dose of true madness? - and the buildings and gardens are a perfect example of late 18th century architecture inspired  the Palladian villas of Italy and gardens of Louis XIV in France. A real pearl, and an escapist dream inspired by the southern latitudes of Europe, landed amongst the northern forests and shores of Sweden.

 

For the whole tragic story of Gunnebo, see my earlier post here.

 

An 18th century drawing of Gunnebo; the orangerie on the right is under reconstruction for the moment; it will probably be completed next year.

 

 Almost the same view today, only from another angle...

 

 

Sculptures still surround the pool seen in the pictures above.

Cows lazily grazing just south from the fountain pool.

Walking back on the side of the terraces of the formal gardens...

An unusual view towards the building from a little hill by the "castle" - that really is too small to be called so.

The kitchen gardens (in opposite direction from the hill where I took the previous photo).

I do love the kitchen gardens - so beautifully composed.

The handsome orangerie/green house again... I wrote about it even in my earlier Gunnebo post.

Just beautiful, couldn't help taking loads of pictures...

"Advanced horticultural science" - they still train the apples on trellises attached to the walls of the kitchen garden. Look at all the pears!

And back to the castle - it was lovely to stand in the shade under the main terrace (which you can see from the garden in the first picture).   

 

 

And a final view from the terrace, with the fountain forming the focus of the central axis - Gunnebo is such a delightful little example of 17th/18th century European garden design, in the middle of the forests of southern Sweden.

Moments from Marstrand

Small ravines between the cliffs, with pink flowers forming like a stream towards the sea. 

Located on a small island on the west coast of Sweden, the tiny city of Marstrand comes alive in the summer when white-sailed boats arrive like huge migratory birds, with their crews filling the cafés and streets with their excited busyness while waiting for the next race. I'm not into any kind of sail racing, so I kept away from the crowds and just enjoyed a windy walk along the grey, smooth cliffs of the island. Afterwards, a coffee at the huge Carlsten Fortress, and I felt like a winner anyway.

Walking through the wind-swept beech forest in the middle of the island looked they'd been taken from the pages of a story book...

An unreal sight - pink waterlilies in a small, dark pool between the cliffs; can they be natural, or did someone plant them here? 

Stone walls of the Carlsten Fortress, built in the 17th century on the highest point of the small island.

 More walls - they look like they grow out from the grey granite of the island...

Another unexpected sight - a kitchen garden behind the fort entrance...

An abundant crop of gooseberries and red currants. 

 

I'll leave you with the pots and seedlings at the gardener's corner - after all, this is supposed to be a gardening blog... 

 

Flower fields at Nyckelviken

The mid-18th century gazebo at Nyckelviken would be the perfect place for romantic meetings - I'm sure that the young members of the owning families sneaked out here for little tête-à-têtes every now and then...

Nyckelviken is one of my favorites, a small 18th century manor house just 10 minutes outside the city center (yes, despite trying to be so cool, Stockholm is that small). Arriving through the gravel drive through the forest, and walking down the long alley flanked by old lindens transfers you back in time to the countryside, despite being so near to the bustle of the modern world.

 

First glimpse of the vegetable gardens from the linden alley.

The manor house, now serving as a café and a restaurant...

The cute little billiard wing, which was also used for dinner dances. Please, can I be "transferred" to a 18th century dance party here, just for once?

 

Stora Nyckelviken, the yellow-painted main house, was built by Swedish East India Company director Herman Peterson around 1746, and has since then been owned by many nobilities and well-known personalities of the Swedish history. The original form of the building, including the color that was supposed to imitate sandstone from Italy, is still beautifully preserved, even if it is now somewhat "degraded" and serves as a café and a restaurant. There are two additional, red-painted wings, a billiard wing (also used for dinner dances in the olden days), a beautiful gazebo and several barns together with other utility buildings, some of which now house rabbits, chicken, pigs, ponies and other cute animals for kids to pet. In summer, the cliffs by the sea are excellent for swimming, and in wintertime, the long hills leading to the cliffs by the sea are perfect for sledding. There are even outdoor fire pits and sitting places where everyone can barbeque their home-brought sausages. Not surprisingly, Nyckelviken is popular among families living in the area, including mine; I have many fond memories of my girls with red cheeks and frozen little fingers, waiting impatiently for their hotdogs and hot cordial after a couple of hours in the snow.

 

One of the small, red-painted wings, now a tiny local museum...

 The central axis leading via the gardens from the manor to the gazebo; it is so good to see that the baroque style and elements have been preserved even when the garden styles have changed during the centuries.

 Flower fields in the old vegetable gardens; only part of them now grow edibles.

 

The old gardens still have their central baroque axis leading from the manor to the gazebo, and old lilac hedges separate the wings and the "garden proper" from the vegetable gardens. The many owners of Nyckelviken used to grow vegetables for the household both for the manor and for their houses in the city, but today, the gardens are mainly for show and for testing different gardening practices and for education - some lucky local school kids get to help harvesting the produce in the autumn. And of course, as "fika"(having a coffee, preferable with a cinnamon bun) is somewhat of a national sport in Sweden, there is an excellent café that serves delicious concoctions - many of which are baked with the fruits an berries from the gardens - for the hungry wanderer. Absolutely lovely, and well worth a detour if you are in the area.

 

 Beans and peonies in the kitchen garden... 

 

 Rows and rows of flowers in the cutting garden...

  ...and a final picture from the cutting garden, with the unusual orangery (nearly no glass panes - what kind of orangery is that?) in the background.

 

Back from a 'workcation' at Bredablick...

A well-needed break from my frenetic garden projects at Bredablick....

 

Everyone has probably heard about 'staycations', the type of holidays where you stay put instead of spending your well-earned holiday on a far-away beach or a trendy city destination. But what do you call it when you fly half around the world, in order to cut back loads of unruly saplings, furiously clean up weeds, and prune back shrubs (in addition to cleaning up & mending your house after some badly behaved rental guests...)? Maybe 'workcation' could be the right world, if it just didn't sound so ugly.

 

Anyway, we are back in Singapore, after four weeks of hard work, and hard play - and as you can guess, I'm still quite exhausted, even if I don't know from which of them the most. We started our tour with a couple of days in Paris (I had almost forgotten how much I love good old Europe), then the rest of the family flew over to Seattle, and I directly to Stockholm to take care of our house and garden (and later also to Turku, my old hometown for a couple of days, but that's another story).

 

The flowerbed by the entrance - with a surprising amount of survivors, from several peonies (they really can take a beating...) to hostas, boxwood balls (now hidden under the perennials) and other toughies...

A Japanese anemone and a bugbane (Actaea racemosa "Brunette") saying hello to me - sadly, I won't be there enjoying the amazing scent of the Brunette this year either...

 

I thought I would just take it over from the last people renting, little did I guess they had had some very eccentric ideas about how to hang curtains (drill tens of holes into the ceilings, and preferably try several times so that you really get it "right"...), try their skills with electrical installations (who cares if it short-circuits half the house), or knock off sinks (there's a drain in the floor for the overflowing water, you see - no problem...?). Getting professional handymen in place in the middle of July is a challenge in Scandinavia, but in the end, most things were repaired before we left. And all the anger I felt was probably good, as I made some serious progress in the garden, weeding, pruning and shoveling things back to shape.

 

Another flowerbed by the steps to the entrance; the hydrangeas had been damaged by the huge drifts of snow last winter, but were coming back with many new shoots from the base. Otherwise, the alchemillas and hostas desperately need dividing, but I didn't have time now for the huge project. At least I'll have a wheelbarrow load of plants in the future after doing so...

More of the front yard, with a huge old boxwood to the left, a couple of old oaks and a lot of lawn... Our house is on a dead-end street (on the left, not in picture) and we only have one neighbor; these two sides of the land are surrounded by a 4 meter high old lilac hedge, which will soon need cutting down for rejuvenation. In the spring, the lawn is full of porcelain scillas, crocuses, snowdrops, winter aconites, grape hyacinths and other tiny wonders that have been spreading there freely for decades. I don't think I'll ever have the energy to convert this part of the garden to much else than lawn - that would take way too much maintenance and watering, as the oaks drink up a lot. I mow what grows, and even if not perfect, the lawn rolls nicely together with the soft rounded cliffs (on the left). The only thing I've been thinking of is planting some old-fashioned peonies (my favorite...) in front of the huge rounded boxwood, towards the entrance door.

A picture taken from the 'seaside' of the house... the front meadow is also gone from all mowing, but will come back fast when I let it grow wild again. In the front left, there is an old pimpinellifolia rose that flowers only once, but spreads then its smell to the whole garden with the sea breeze. And the old oaks definitely need pruning back, the branches are hitting the roof and the façade of the house. We are probably the only people in Saltsjöbaden with an oak in the middle of the sea view...

 

 Hello Daddy Deer - a family with two kids had taken over the garden, constantly staring at us like we were some rude intruders... again, they were here first, so I need to adjust whatever I plant to them, not the other way around.

 

I was quite taken by the garden itself. I'd been thinking most of my darlings would be gone - as they say, it takes five years of neglect to erase a garden - but that wasn't the case. Even if some things had died, many of my favorite plants were still there, battling on, in some cases actually quite successfully. I felt that with some editing and some light-handed additions, we'll be back on track together as soon as I get back. And it feels like all these years - five already, and counting - my plans have simplified, and I really appreciate the site as the gorgeous patch of land it is, and don't see it as project for improvement, as I sadly did earlier. Now I  see the vanity in my plans with all those magnificent plant combinations; instead of showing off my 'creativity' and my 'gardening skills' (sad, but true...) everywhere in the garden, I now feel like I can just let it be, provide a comfortable bench and let the land and nature talk for themselves. Quite relaxing, actually, and definitely something to look forward to.

Another view from the seaside... Yes, the oak is growing directly into the house, but I can't bear the thought of taking it out as it gives such a lovely shade, no curtains needed. Under the oak there are several wild roses, and I've added some semi-wild rugosa hybrids that the deer won't eat, so the group blooms in white and shell pink tones in the early summer. The cliffs leading to the sea are full of wild lily-of-the-valleys, thousands of them growing in large drifts. And I was thinking of planting something here... how silly. On the other hand, the wooden deck (on the right side of the house in the picture) that functions as our outdoor dining area isn't a beauty exactly, so I might concentrate my efforts on "improving" it instead. Something in white would go well together with the house, but needs so much maintenance... and I would love to have a greenhouse, but the winds from the sea can be hard, and would probably be dangerous for the class panes.

View from the deck. This part of the garden dries almost completely every summer, so its usually kept as a dry meadow. The only problem is that tics love long grass; they don't thrive on anything mown, as they sit on the tops of the grass straws and prey for passing animals to attach themselves on. With two children and now a dog that is a real problem, but then, kids and dogs play everywhere and are likely to get some tics despite any preventive actions...Otherwise, lily-of-the-valleys and heathers thrive here together with wild roses and quite surprisingly given the dry soil, even wild raspberries.

Give me a power tool and I'll be happy for hours... Not really, but sometimes just basic things like blasting off five years worth of dirt from the outdoor furniture can be quite meditative.

 

This is what I mean with "providing a comfortable bench and letting the land and nature talk for themselves"... sometimes, that really is enough. I've placed a weathered bench (bought while we lived in Melbourne) on an old stone paving in the lower part of our garden, just before the high cliffs drop down to the sea (you can see the tall pines just disappearing, the tops barely showing on the right, but it is the cliffs that drop suddenly). This is a perfect spot for contemplating life in all its complexities... or for just lazy meditations. "Bredablick" is the name of our land, meaning "Wide View".