When I was little, we often moved house and town. This was because my father was a pastor in the Church of Norway, and a pastor doesn’t often stay for ever in the same place. I grew up in several houses; most of them with big gardens. We had fruit trees, flowers, trees to climb and lawns to mow.
I remember once when I was around 11 years old, I was weeding with my mother and aunt. “I hate this”, I said, and they just laughed. “Just you wait”, they said. “Gardening is in your blood. You’ll have a garden and love it when you are forty.” “Never”, I said. But I was wrong.
It does seem to be in my genes. My botanist grandma Marion would be delighted to know that there are few things in the world more precious to me now than our woodland garden outside of Stockholm in Sweden.
In 2014 we became owners of a little holiday home, just 10 km from the flat we live in in a gloriously multicultural Stockholm suburb. In the flat we have a large, glassed balcony, which serves as a mini garden and a greenhouse. In the summer house garden we grow flowers, vegetables and fruit. And we love it. The page image is of our blackberry vine on the veranda in autumnal splendour.
This page is dedicated my interests in gardening and growing, ecology and nature. I dream of extending my gardening interest to a larger scale and hope to start or become part of an urban gardening project where I live.