The connection between tree ferns and wild strawberries

Great Ocean Road in Victoria, southeastern Australia

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We're taking a little break from the chilly rain and escaping to the southern shores of Victoria to celebrate Christmas with our Aussie friends by surfing on the beach and trekking the verdant tree-fern filled forests by the Great Ocean Road. I can almost smell the eucalyptus and tea trees already... and feel the salty surf against my cheeks. A couple of captivating gardens are on the agenda, to be shared with you in January. Smultronställe, which literally translates "a good spot for finding wild strawberries", is a Swedish word for describing the most special places in ones life, and today, we are heading off to one of ours, far away in Australia.

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With luggage ready by the entrance and a taxi waiting to take us to the airport, I wish you all a peaceful holiday season whatever and where ever you are celebrating. All the best for the coming new year, and I'll be back in January 2011!

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Rain and the zen of moss gardening

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The weather gods of the Pacific Northwest are showing off all their muscles. Since last Friday, they have bestowed Seattle with almost six inches of rain and there still seems to be no end to their generosity. Some coastal areas have got drenched with 12 inches in three days, which equals half the yearly rainfall of Stockholm or Melbourne pouring down during just one long weekend. Our air humidity is now close to 90%, but unfortunately that's where all similarities stop with the velvety, balm climes of Singapore...

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Not tempted to stick my nose out and get soaked, I've been perusing George Schenk's remarkable book Moss Gardening Including Lichens, Liverworts, and Other Miniatures (Timber Press, 1997). It is a perfect companion for rainy winter months, the high season of all mosses; when else do their emerald, smooth cushions look so soft and becoming than during the coldest and wettest days of the year?

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Originating from the moist shores of the Pacific Northwest, George draws from his long experience of moss gardening on three continents and offers fascinating insights to how his tiny subjects have been used in the gardens of East and West. With his expressive pen, he blends garden history and design with horticultural practices into a delightful mixture of knowledge, wit and entertainment. Many pictures in his book are highly inspiring, and George can now be blamed for getting me all fired up about growing mosses in containers, especially on flat bonsai trays. Just imagine low, unglazed trays holding miniature landscapes of soft, billowy mosses: so poetic, unusual, easy to care for and hardy - in my eyes, absolutely irresistible!

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On the pages of Moss gardening, I especially enjoy George's thoughts of what he calls 'ocular gardening', or gardening by eyes only, where the gardener draws back all her efforts instead of bending the nature to her ideas. This minimalist gardening practice is unique to moss gardeners and consists of waiting for nature to plant mosses best suited for the place, providing only a minimum of help by watering occasionally and by picking up wind-blown debris. According to George, in a couple of years, the patient gardener is rewarded with a luxuriant carpet of mosses. Not the most patient gardener myself, I'm intrigued by this zen-like idea of letting go and enjoying the slowly emerging results, even if I know from experience that the reality is seldom as easy as that, not even in a moss-prone area like the Pacific Northwest.

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A carpet of moss is a great awakener of the sensuous human being that I think every gardener must by nature be, writes George in his wonderful, spirited book. I cannot but agree, and leave you with his favorite haiku by Ikiru from Japan, the country of the masters of moss gardening:

On the shingled gate

Where in rain moss grows jade-bright
Earth and heaven merge.

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Saving Sipsalo, one small step at a time...

The main house of Sipsalo farm, where Pehr Kalm grew his North American plants in the 1750s.

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It is almost a year ago that I last wrote about Sipsalo, the forgotten gardens of botanical explorer Pehr Kalm.

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A student of Carl Linnaeus, Pehr Kalm was one of the lucky few who managed to return alive from his plant collecting tours, having visited the relatively safe target destination of North America in 1748-51. Back in Finland, he worked as a professor at the Turku Academy, dutifully propagating in Sipsalo his admirable collection of seeds of over 400 plants. Many of them failed in the harsh climate - for example, the utopian idea of establishing silk industry in Finland failed miserably as both the silkworms and mulberry trees soon froze to death - but some of them, like Parthenocissus vitacea (syn. P. inserta), Rubus odorata and Crataegus grayana, are now a common part of the flora of Finland.

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A small copper sign tells quietly about the fascinating past of Sipsalo.

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As I wrote a year ago, Sipsalo will be sold during next spring (2011) and its future remains uncertain. Since last November, many contacts have been taken on both sides of the Atlantic ocean. Many leading researchers, scientists and historians have taken a keen interest in Sipsalo and agreed on that Sipsalo has an inestimable value as a place where botanical, horticultural and scientific heritages of three countries, Finland, Sweden and the United States of America, touch each other.

During the past year, several Finnish organizations with potential capacity for owning and managing Sipsalo have been contacted. The local universities, the National Board of Antiquities and the Finnish Cultural Heritage Foundation have been some of the suitable candidates. The tough economic times have certainly played in as great interest have been shown by many, but so far, none of them has had the courage and money (a long time commitment like this demands a great deal of planning and resources) to buy Sipsalo, and secure its future for the coming generations. Understandable, but at the same time, very sad and disappointing.

A south-facing meadow and old apple trees in front of the buildings of Sipsalo.

For a while, I almost lost my hope for Sipsalo, and felt that maybe nothing will came out of all work that I and many others have done to rescue Sipsalo (for example, an article that I wrote about the international interest for Sipsalo was published in Turun Sanomat in June 2010 - all response was very positive, but there were no other immediate results). Then, last week I was told that Katri Sarlund from the city council of Turku had made an initiative that the city should purchase Sipsalo.

After contacting Katri, we agreed on that an international petition by the community of researchers, scientists and writers would be highly desirable, and probably effective in promoting the cause. So I wrote one, and so far, I've been very happy to receive great response from everyone I've contacted. In January, Turku City Council will receive an international petition letter for Sipsalo with a handsome list of supporters from three continents.

So no happy ending yet, but I do have high hopes for one. And even if the work in not quite done, I already admit that I have learned a lot during the process. Like that next time I try to save an old garden, I will go and take a lesson in community organizing first. Nevertheless, I am very glad that I've tried and I sincerely hope that Sipsalo at last will be saved to the coming generations. I will keep you posted.

An old oak tree planted by Pehr Kalm in the 18th century by the Aura river in Turku. The Botanical Gardens that surrounded the oak were destroyed in the 1960s. If Sipsalo is lost to new housing development, this old oak tree will be the only remaining evidence of and memorial to Kalm's work.

My three earlier posts about Sipsalo: Save the forgotten gardens of Pehr Kalm, August 2009. Sipsalo, again, December 2009. Late November in Sipsalo, December 2009.
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Unfortunately, my article in Turun Sanomat is not available on-line, and I haven't found a way to download the pdf here on my blog.

Please leave a comment if you need more information about Sipsalo.

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