... and gardeners must garden

Fritillaria meleagris, here flowering on my kitchen bench, reminds me of the ones growing at the wild flower meadow in my garden in Saltsjöbaden.

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Garden shows always make me ponder the meaning of the whole activity of gardening and the hugely different results produced by different individuals pursuing this activity. Leaving out economic gardens where only food is cultivated for survival, the questions of "Why do we garden?" and "What are our gardens for?" come to my mind as relevant reflexions.

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Charles Quest-Ritzon, a quite well-known British garden writer, gives a kind of an answer to my questions in his interesting book The English Garden - A social History (Viking/Penguin Books, 2001). According to him, gardening is purely social history - it is all about social aspiration, lifestyles and money. He laments the fact that just like many art historians, many garden historians have been mainly occupied by the development of garden styles, particular designers or gardens, and accounts on plant-hunting or botanical phenomena. The subject has all too often been the big gardens, big names and big themes; only lately the garden history has been interested in minor gardens and "secondary" aspects of gardening. Quest-Ritzon claims that gardens have too often been described without adequate reference to the social and economic conditions which engendered them. Deliberately being provocative, he states that gardens are symbols of social status and class, and have little to do with the history of art or the development of aesthetic theories - and nothing whatsoever with moral forces, artistic tasks and the psychology of perception.

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My girls climbing in an old apple tree in Saltsjöbaden; it was planted by the first owners of the house in 1935. Gardens are not only physical, they are made of memories that follow us through our lives.

Tough stuff, I think, and I heartily disagree with him on this. Unintentionally, my thoughts wander to the (quite worn out) theory of an American behavioural scientist Abraham Maslow, who in 1943 published his article entitled "A Theory of Human Motivation", that has been since taught to millions of college and university students. He argued that people everywhere are subject to what he called a "hierarchy of needs". In his model, at the bottom were the elementary physiological needs for food, shelter, sex and sleep, then come the basic needs for safety and security. First once the basic needs are met, people move up on "Maslow's pyramid" to look for other things, as "belonging needs" for love, acceptance and affiliation, "esteem needs" for self-respect, social status and the approval of others, and at the top, needs for "self-actualization". Later in his life, Abraham Maslow further divided the level of self-actualization into four different parts. These he named the cognitive level: to know, to understand, and to explore; the aesthetic level: the pursuit of symmetry, order, and beauty; and the self-actualization level: trying to find self fulfillment and realize one's potential. The final and "highest" level in his theory is transcendence: to help others find self fulfillment and realize their own potential.

So, what has all this to do with gardening and gardeners? First, I don't fully agree with Maslow's hierarchy of needs (I do feel gloriously opinionated today...); I rather think that we all are born with different "sets of needs", abilities and potential. We make individual choices on how we prioritize fulfilling of our needs; for some, social acceptance is very important, others would rather go hungry than give up their chosen professions in life.

Also as gardeners, our personalities govern how and in which order we fulfill our needs - which leads to the different aspirations and end results in how we garden. Some of us grow things to get food, but very few of Western gardeners are totally depending on their crops for their living. For some of us, the "belonging needs" are important; we are members of societies and clubs, and/or use blogging as a method to connect to other gardeners. For others (and I think Quest-Ritzon's gardeners belong to this group - and many of them probably leave the act of gardening to others), "esteem needs" with the accompanying social status and approval of others are important. Many of us are driven by the needs for "self-actualization"; botanists and plantsmen by their need to explore and to know; design-oriented gardeners by the pursuit of aesthetic pleasure and beauty. We get a feeling of deep contentment and self fulfillment through our gardens, and a few of us even help others to realize their own potential by helping them further on the path of gardening (here I think about the many teachers, unselfishly inspiring garden people and writers).

Hellebores flowering in March 2007 by the side entrance of my house in Saltsjöbaden; the first of these wonderfully dark and prolifically self-seeding Hellebores were planted by the first owner of the house. I gave a seedling of these to his now 76 year old "youngest daughter" last spring - a circle of connected lives and gardeners.

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So, there are as many reasons and ways to garden as there are gardening individuals. In general, I think we garden because it gives us joy and gratification. Plants and gardens can be wonderful keepers of memories, full of connections to our past and to our beloved ones. Looking small leaf buds unfurl and bulbs peek out from the dark soil in the spring gives a deep satisfaction and a sense of belonging to the nature and the never ending cycle of life. Even Maslow himself said: "Musicians must make music, artists must paint, poets must write if they are to be ultimately at peace with themselves. What humans can be, they must be. They must be true to their own nature." My addition to this would be ...and gardeners must garden.

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PS 1 - According to Maslow, creativity is a quality that can be applied to any task in life. Maslow maintained that a first rate soup is better than a second rate painting...

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PS 2 - Don't let my text above distract you; Quest-Ritzon's book (now out of print) is extremely well-researched and entertaining, and it truly makes an interesting connection between the bigger picture of developments in society while describing the aesthetics and practicalities of gardening. I highly recommend it as reading to anyone interested in garden history.
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Garden shows and show gardens

Some short notes... I just came back from the Northwest Flower & Garden Show, which is on for the moment in Seattle. With tired feet and a bit of a headache, I have a lingering feeling of a slight disappointment. Despite all the nice displays, I did not think there was anything really "new". The theme this year was (is) "Sustainable spaces - beautiful places", which suits well the current situation of economic and climate related crisis. Of course, a degree of abundance is expected of show gardens, but the general feeling was an overflow of everything, both plants and materials, and combined with a bit too generous use of water and electricity (not to mention the resources needed to build and transport the materials), the gardens did not quite convey the theme of the show. It is an art to know when to stop, and some of the gardens would have profited from this knowledge.

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While wandering around, I could not quite understand why the exhibition room was kept so dark (this also made photographing difficult). Maybe just like old ladies look better in dimmed dining rooms, the arrangers thought that the dark lighting masked possible shortcomings of the exhibitors... Stylewise, many of the gardens had strong Asiatic influences, something that has long traditions here in the Northwest; but though quite pleasing to the eye, generally the gardens were not groundbreaking in any ways. I like the way designers here use evergreen plants, but often there was too many plant varieties and leaf colours, which made the effect too heavy and/or overloaded to my (minimalist) Scandinavian eyes. A large variety of garden societies, nurseries and plant and bulb sellers were on place and all kinds of gardening needs were catered for. But if you ask me, all the knick-knacks frequently present at gardens shows, with nothing else common with gardens or gardening than the eye catching flower decorations on them, could better been left out from the show...

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The best part of the show was the huge number of seminars provided, over 200 of them during the five show days, quite many of them keeping to the theme of the show. It was amazing to see the huge interest for them, long lines of show visitors queued nicely to get tickets to attend. I saw Ulf Nordfjell talk about his beautiful work and about gardens in Gothenburg, and got a glimpse of his coming "Black and White" themed garden in Chelsea in May; I listened to Dan Hinkley talk about "showstopping" and gardenworthy plants, and Nori Pope about his gorgeous colour schemes. And there would have been so much more to listen to, if I only had had the time and possibility. These kind of opportunities come far too seldom. To hear from so many knowledgeable and interesting gardening people, both designers, plant people and other garden personalities, gives so many new impressions and ideas to work with in one's own garden..
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There was a huge buzz about this being or not being the last Northwest Flower & Garden Show, as the present owner has decided to concentrate on other things in his life. I hope that there will be some kind of a continuation, but this might be a good time to revise the concept and come with a new version. With so much interest in gardening as there is within this area, I am convinced that a major garden event or show still has an important place to fill in Washington.

A vibrant feast for the eyes and mind

"Seeing that full moon, heralder of the white night lilies... Krishna played his flute softly, capturing the hearts of the beautiful-eyed women..." Detail from the Krishna Lila, ca. 1765.

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After all sad events lately, I just felt giving a small treat for myself. Little did I guess that my choice of a treat, visiting the "Garden and Cosmos: Royal Paintings of Jodhpur" exhibition at the Seattle Asian Art Museum, would be such a feast for my eyes and mind. 60 beautiful and unusual paintings, painstakingly painted in opaque watercolours and gold with fine brushes made of squirrel's tail hair, from the royal ateliers of the kingdom of Jodhpur-Marwar, in what now is Northwest India.

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Detail from Maharaja Bakhat Singh Enjoying the Gardens at Nagaur, 1737.

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The paintings, that have never seen before in the west, display not only scenes of luxurious life in the palaces and their gardens, but also include a mystical series created for a 19th-century ruler who turned over political power to an ascetic sect. As a short introduction to the exhibition tells, "the paintings reveal the emergence of a delightful and sensuous garden aesthetic in the 18th century, as well as a dramatic shift in visual consciousness in the early 19th century, when an amazing series of large images exploring esoteric yoga philosophy, unprecedented in Indian art, led to a sublimely minimal aesthetic." Reading all the explanations and texts on the exhibition walls made me reflect over my shallow knowledge about the highstanding, old culture of India with its different regions and religions, and I truly felt my own shortcoming in this area (I browsed the extensive and well-illustrated, 325-page catalogue, but decided that $40 was a bit too much to invest just now). But still, the refined and luxurious paintings talked their own language, that I can deeply admire.

Detail from Ram and Lakshman Wait Out the Monsoon, from the Tulsidas Ramayana, ca. 1775. K

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As a garden person, I really enjoyed the details of the gardens that these paintings show; most of the paintings are quite large, about 1m (3-4ft) wide and high, so the amount of work that has gone to painting them is incredible. Inside large walls there are geometrical flower beds and water rills with fountains. Outside the palaces are gardens with fruit trees with different kinds of colourful birds and different kinds of animals; large ponds are filled with with ducks and fish. Everything is painted in amazing detail, one can see the feathers of the birds and individual leaves and flowers of the plants, as the gardens and the surrounding landscape are depicted as a pleasure ground for the maharajahs and the gods. Naturally, they also are a symbol for the status, power and refinement or the maharajahs and their courts.

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If I have something to wish, I just would have hoped for more detailed information about the gardens and their contents; What were the main elements of these gardens, and what were their origins and meanings? Could any plans of them have been exhibited, as many or the paintings depict real gardens? What are the plants and flowers in them and what do they symbolize? In some paintings there are vegetables and flowers used as offerings; which plants are they and what were their meanings? I know that some of this probably is considered "too horticultural" for an art exhibition, but I still think that many visitors would very much enjoy such information. Maybe including botanical/horticultural and garden history expertise in future exhibitions, when garden related art is included, would be an interesting idea?

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"Singing loudly to himself, (Krishna), wearing a garland of flowers, frolicked in the forest...", detail from the Krishna Lila, ca. 1765.

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These paintings were created to be shown one at a time for the maharajah(s) lying down on soft pillows. Trying to take in all 60 of them at one time gives a totally different experience, and the royal painters surely would not have thought this was a suitable way to enjoy their art. Reluctantly leaving the exhibition, I felt almost drunk by the splendour and colour, and thankful for having experienced this great, but small glimpse of the old Hindu culture of Jodhpur-Marwar in India.

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The "Garden and Cosmos" exhibition contains a room full of beautiful photos of the Mehrangarh Fort and its surroundings appearing in the paintings, giving an excellent opportunity to compare the view and perspective of the painters to the reality. The Mehrangarh Fort is one of India's most important historical monuments and draws more than half a million visitors annually. There are many interesting gardens to visit around this area, and I truly hope, that I some day will be able to enjoy them in person...

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Probably totally illegally, I scanned in some postcards of the paintings. Some of them are shown on-line at SAAM web site; if you zoom in you can catch some of the very fine details of the paintings.
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It is time to reflect...

A bushfire in Victoria, Australia. Photo: AFP.
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There is no way to describe the horror and sadness of following the bush fires engulfing huge areas North of Melbourne in Victoria, Australia. So many families there have lost or are losing not only their houses, but also their loved ones; all that nature and wildlife, destroyed for long times to come. It is a time of sorrow, even for us not directly affected.

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Koalas at Cape Otway in Victoria, Australia. Picture taken by me in February 2007.

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A koala emerges from the fire at Christmas Hills. Photo: Tina McCarthy, The Age.

I lived in Melbourne from 1999 to 2003. What was then called "a drought" began about the same time as we moved there. During those years, we experienced temperatures between 33ºC and 38ºC (90º to 100ºF) each summer, which was quite exhausting, especially as I was breastfeeding our daughters who were born in 2000 and 2002. Now the temperatures climb even higher, just a week ago thermometers reached a new, terrifying record of 48ºC (118ºF). When we moved back to Sweden in 2003, Melbourne water levels were at 52% of the total capacity of the storage. Now they are at 32%, a huge difference in only six years, despite all restrictions on water usage. Many of the reservoirs and lakes around Melbourne have disappeared totally, like Lake Wendouree in Ballarat (just one hours drive from Melbourne), where 28 countries competed in rowing and canoeing events at the Melbourne Olympics some 50 years ago. It has been dry at least twice before (in 1850s and 1930s), but this still gives a good indication of how desperate the water situation in Victoria is.

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The beautiful garden of one our friends at Mornington Peninsula, in Victoria, Australia.
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As Freya Mathews, a research fellow in the philosophy department at La Trobe University, writes in today's newspaper The Age in Melbourne:

The fires we saw on Saturday were not "once in a thousand years" or even "once in a hundred years" events, as our political leaders keep repeating. They were the face of climate change in our part of the world. These fires are simply the result of the new conditions that climate change has introduced here: raised temperatures, giving us hotter days than we have ever experienced before combined with lower rainfall giving us a drier landscape. Let's stop using the word "drought", with its implication that dry weather is the exception. The desiccation of the landscape here is the new reality. It is now our climate.

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Our friend's garden at Mornington Peninsula, in Victoria, Australia.

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It is a scary scenario for all of us, and acutely scary to those living in these areas most effected by the climate change. As Freya Mathews describes it, the consequences of climate change will make the financial crisis look like a garden party, which gives a not very promising picture of our future. Lin Yutang so aptly writes: Hope is like a road in the country; there was never a road, but when many people walk on it, the road comes into existence. Even if I might sound pretentious, I think this is a time to reflect how we can make a difference in our lives to lessen our footprints on this beautiful planet, so that we together can create a road to a better future.

Entrance to Children's Garden at Melbourne Royal Botanic Gardens, sculptures like green flames planted with Muehlbeckia complexa (maidenhair vine), Asparagus densiflorus as underplanting. Picture taken by me in February 2007.

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Rags to riches… to rags?

A family building a stone wall in their garden in Lillängen in Sweden in the 1940's. Courtesy of Lokalarkiv for Nacka kommun.

It is difficult to stay unaffected by all reports of doom; just this morning, the Financial Times warned that 50m people could lose their jobs, and that the “economic pain will be worst for 60 years”. And as usual, nobody seems to know extend of the damage; new casualties seem to be surfacing every day. It feels like when the frost takes the seedlings and buds, leaving you to wonder just how much of the crops will be affected the next autumn.

Andy Sturgeon's Cancer Research UK Garden at Chelsea Flower Show in 2007. Picture taken by me in 2007.

Christopher Lloyd inspired many of us by his fantastic writing about his plantings and garden at Great Dixter. Picture taken by me in 2007.

Within gardening and garden design, the prosperous period that started in the 1980’s and continued until 2007 (with a smaller hick-up of an economic crisis in the beginning of 1990’s), now seems to be coming to an end. During these years, we have seen a mix of greater affluence, more leisure time and ever-rising house prices, which have made property-improvement extremely worthwhile in most “Western” countries from Europe to the US and to Australia. Most of us have enjoyed better possibilities to invest in our housing and to spend money on our interests and hobbies. We have not only gardened, but also travelled to see other people’s gardens and diverse garden shows; we have spent ever increasing amounts of money on gardening books, magazines and equipment of all kind, much of our interests fuelled by the media. Many historical gardens have been restored and we have been able to visit them and learn about them in a way that was not possible earlier. Some landscape architects and garden designers have risen to a star status, creating new trends for the rest of us to follow. Just look at all the kitchen gardens (or potagers, as they often are referred to), greenhouses, gardens with native plants, or grasses and other “new perennials” made during this period; in addition to a keen interest in gardening, all of them also require financial resources that can be used for other than basic daily needs.

A sandpit beautifully fitted into to cliffs and made of local stones in the front of my house in Saltsjöbaden. Picture from 1936. The oak tree behind stands still there.

I am not trying to be overly dramatic, but if the economic situation continues to deteriorate, will we look at this period within gardening as the “last golden decades” of the 20th century, a bit like we talk about the “golden afternoon” of the Edwardian era in Western gardening, just before the First World War broke out in 1914? And the next interesting question is, what kind of gardens will we be making now? Some of us, of course, will not be affected at all, but with a predicted 50m unemployed people in the world, many of us will have no extra money to spend. The plunging housing prices will make fewer of us keen on investing in our homes and gardens, which means that architects, builders and garden designers will face harder times. As for so many other domestic services, people will probably spend less money for the maintenance of their gardens. And will we be able pay for new plants, tools, decorations and gadgets for our gardens? Not likely.

Planting between the cliffs with Solomon's seal, Polygonatum multiflorum, geraniums and sea thrift, Armeria maritima. All plants were typical in the 1930's, easy to grow and divide.

It might not all be gloom, though; seed companies will probably experience a new upswing, as many more of us will discover the delights of not only growing our own vegetables, but also other plants from seeds, for much less money than buying them pre-raised from the garden centres. In a similar kind of economic climate, the 1930’s gardening articles in Sweden were telling how to gather seeds from the nature to make a lawn, an effort that many of us would think unrealistic today, used as we are to the ready-made lawn turf. Old gardening techniques might also get an upswing, with taking cuttings and layering techniques rising to new popularity. All of this has a positive effect on the climate, as transport and watering of pre-potted plants in their plastic pots will diminish. (Not that I have anything against the nursery industry in general and I am very sad if many very talented and knowledgeable people in this area lose their jobs to the recession).

Gardening in the 1960's in Sweden. Courtesy of Lokalarkiv for Nacka kommun.

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With fewer resources available, we will probably see sustainability both in terms of labour and other resources as an important goal within garden design. Will someone still want to import a water feature in Chinese marble carved to imitate renaissance fountains in Italy, and keep it flowing with spotlights lightning up it at night? Probably not. Instead, we need to use less of energy, less of earth's resources and probably less of our own time, and at the same time create gardens that satisfy our needs for recreation and enjoyment. And we will hopefully continue to explore the possibilities of native plants and recycled or locally sourced materials, as our choices need to be sustainable. Even here it is interesting to look at the 1930’s, when garden designers and landscape architects embraced the thoughts of “modernism” as the solution to design problems in similar times of distress. In Sweden, this often translated into gardens with native plants and designs that were well suited to their environments, just like the picture of a sandpit above shows. It will be very interesting to see how we will continue to express ourselves through our gardens, while we face the challenges of our own time.

Witch hazels and other midwinter wonders

It is only my first winter in Seattle, but I already disagree with all reports of a rainy and dull place that would better be avoided. Instead, I have fallen in love with these foggy and cold winter days; just look what I enjoyed this morning in the Washington Park Arboretum, only a couple of minutes drive across the lake. So many beauties flowering in the middle of January, gently wrapped in the fog, giving themselves off by their delicate scents! I first went to see the witch hazel collection in the Southern end of the Arboretum, but surprisingly none of the plants there were flowering. But then, I fortunately had better luck in the Witt Winter Garden, near the visitors centre.

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Most of the witch hazels at the Arboretum are of the Chinese species Hamamelis mollis or Hamamelis x intermedia, which is a hybrid between the Japanese witch hazel Hamamelis x japonica and H. x mollis. Especially lovely is the excellent, strongly scented cultivar of H. X intermedia 'Pallida', here in full bloom, looking like clusters of lemon zest are hanging from its branches.

Another beautiful, but less scented cultivar is Hamamelis x intermedia 'Winter beauty', with much darker orange petals. I just love the way the damp climate here makes mosses and lichens to grow so well and to cover many of the woody plants, often looking like green flowers themselves hanging to the branches.

The stinking helleborus, Helleborus foetida, with its pale green flowers in full bloom complements well the witch hazels.
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The European hazel, Corylus avellana, is quite common in the wild in Sweden, and my garden in Sweden had many of these large shrubs growing around it and producing small, dry nuts late in the autumn. Commercially cultivated hazels are called filberts. They are most often hybrids between Corylus avellana and Corylus maxima, the giant filbert, which achieves thirty feet and produces large, edible nuts. Corylus maxima 'Atropurpurea Superba', seen here with its large, purple catkins, is a beautiful and unusual relative of these cultivated hazels.

A new find was the fragrant wintersweet, Chimonanthus praecox, which flowers for the moment with a strong and sweet, hyacinth-like scent. It seems otherwise to be quite an unattractive shrub, a bit like the more common forsythias, but in the right place, where it can hide behind showy perennials during the summer months, it definitely earns its place in a garden for its scent.

Another "friend" from my time in Melbourne, Australia is the silk-tassel bush, Garrya elliptica that I used to admire when it was flowering in the middle of the mild Australian winter. This genus was actually named for Nicholas Garry, a Secretary of the Hudson’s Bay Company who assisted David Douglas in his explorations of the Pacific North-West in the 1820s. It is both an evergreen and a drought tolerant plant, and native to woodlands in Western USA, Central America and the West Indies. The male catkins are the most attractive, just like for so many other early flowering plants as hazels and birches. An especially attractive cultivar with extra long tassels is Garrya x issaquahensis (pictured above), cross that was found in a private garden in Issaqua near Seattle for some years ago.

And just one more picture - I just loved this bird's nest up in a large Magnolia, full of silky buds. What a beautiful place for the small baby birds to start their lives in when they hatch in the spring!

Quote of the Day

Half the interest of a garden is the constant exercise of the imagination.

- Alice Morse Earle, 1897 -

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Sometimes I wonder if our gardens really do exist, other than as a projection of our dreams in our minds and thoughts. I've so often seen that empty look in other peoples eyes when they look at my plantings, unable to imagine them as I do. I my mind, I see the promise of beauty with no bare soil, all the tiny seedlings forming beautiful mats of well-combined perennials, the twiggy saplings as full grown trees.

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I found the pretty snowdrops above (Galanthus elwesii, the giant snowdrop) on my morning walk and started wondering if the ones I planted in my garden in Saltsjöbaden, hundreds of them between a large group of Hostas, would soon come up. And of course, I started to contemplate new plants to complement the scheme in my garden. So, even if I am not getting the physical exercise of gardening for the moment, my mind is definitely being busy with the creative part of it.

Nordic touch at the Northwest Flower & Garden Show

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Yesterday, I was thrilled to notice that Ulf Nordfjell, one of the most celebrated Swedish Landscape Architects, is giving two seminars at the Northwest Flower & Garden Show in Seattle on February 18-22, 2009. I just felt like a "bit of home" will be coming here, as even if I do not know Ulf personally, I have followed his career closely for many years and visited several gardens designed by him. Some of these are private gardens located near my home in Saltsjöbaden close to Stockholm, some show gardens or public gardens.
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For the international audience, Ulf is probably best know for his gold award winning "A Tribute to Linnaeus" show garden at Chelsea Flower Show in 2007. This garden explored the legacy of the great Swedish botanist Carl von Linné, and interpreted it in modern terms. Many of the references to Linné (Linnaeus before he got knighted and took the name von Linné) were very subtle, mere hints included in the modern and clean design. In general, Ulf's design style could be called "poetic modern", with influences from both the Swedish nature and landscape to classic Italian gardens. His planting schemes, always thoughtfully expressed within the architectural limits, are clearly related not only to the traditional Swedish meadows, but also to the new perennial movement, with swathes of grasses and perennials planted in interlocking groups and patterns. Oehme, van Sweden and Piet Oudolf come to my mind if I need to describe Ulf's plant schemes to people here. Obviously the international audience is going soon to hear more about Ulf, as he is doing a new show garden at Chelsea Flower Show 2009, this time for The Daily Telegraph.

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Ulf's seminars in Seattle are held on Wednesday, February 18th at 11:30 AM (Twelve gardens - designing gardens and public parks) and on Thursday, February 19th at 10:00 AM (The Garden Society of Gothenburg - spectacular Swedish show gardens). Both in the Rainier Room.

For those who are interested in a close look at Ulf's work, see his book called 12 Trädgårdar av Ulf Nordfjell (12 Gardens by U. N., 2008) with beautiful photos by Jerry Harpur. Check also out Skogens trädgårdar, a display garden by Ulf at Wij Trädgårdar in Ockelbo in Sweden.
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I took all pictures above at the Chelsea Flower Show 2007 - the quality is not quite there, as it was difficult to take photos jostling between hundreds of other show visitors.

The floating gardens of Seattle

Houseboats are something I usually connect with Amsterdam, but they actually are a distinctive part of Seattle too. Some of us might remember them as a background scenery in the romantic comedy "Sleepless of Seattle", where Tom Hanks portrayed a lovesick father looking for a new mother for his only son. Or was it the son looking for new partner for his father? Anyway, some of the earliest houseboats were constructed already in the 1880s by mill workers on the West Coast, but by the early 1900s many of there were converted into weekend cottages, suitable for recreation by the lakes in the summer time. By 1920s there was about 2500 houseboats in Seattle, since then the popularity has somewhat declined. Some time ago, I bought Caroline T. Swolpe's book "Classic Houses of Seattle. High Style to Vernacular, 1870-1950" to learn more about the early housing styles here, and found some interesting pictures of these early houseboats, small houses complete with porches and Victorian scrollwork.

Even today, there are several houseboat communities by the lakes in Seattle. I walked by one of these at the Western shore of Lake Union, and despite the signs of "no trespassing", I could not help slipping down to the piers and taking some photos. The houseboat owners here seemed to be very garden orientated; there did not seem to be much that you cannot grow on a houseboat. Tall grasses, topiary, bamboo... all of them in pots and containers, gently swaying with the waves. I really felt my bohemian side calling me, telling me to leave the present bourgeoisie life and to settle down on one of these cute dwellings... I could almost see me sipping tea and growing vegetables by the lake, taking a tour with my kayak before sitting down to write that hugely successful book. I wonder if the reality of a houseboat dweller is as romantic as I imagine?

The Garden Book of the Year 2008

Book about The Botanical Garden of Visby by Ila.

Just as the year was fading away, a small package made its way from Turku in Finland to Seattle, carrying Christmas presents. Amongst them was my absolute choice for the Garden Book of the Year 2008; my 10-year old niece Ila's lovely booklet about her visit to the Botanical Garden of Visby, on the island of Gotland in Sweden. I am so impressed with her idea of documenting her visit and making a lasting memory of it. Ila's way to photograph the roses after a light rain, with drops still hanging to the plump flowers is just exquisite (my scanner does unfortunately not catch the real beauty of the pictures, 24 of them in total). The layout of the book is beautiful and the names of the roses have been noted correctly with all the details. I just wonder what Ila will be up to next, as talented and artistic child as she is...?

Rosa Kalmar

Both photographs: © strictly Ila Narjus.