How To Create A Beautiful Scandinavian Garden

2024 Author: Sebastian Paterson | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:47

Elements of the "Scandinavian style" are appropriate and available here

The world famous "Scandinavian style" in interior and exterior design was born by the Norwegians as well. An experienced Scandinavian specialist will certainly find a certain amount of Norwegian décor nuances. This fully applies to the landscaping of houses and streets, which does not interfere with getting acquainted at least in the most general terms.

For Norway, the most beautiful of the Scandinavian countries, more than many others, cottage construction is typical. This is partly due to the low population density and the absence of the problem of lack of land for development. Another reason is the rather high standard of living of the population. Most small Norwegian towns, such as Alta or Lillihammer, are almost entirely built up with cottages.

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And even Oslo, the capital of the country, in its very heart, on the Bonday peninsula, has a small cottage area - a real oasis of greenery, adjacent to the main Norwegian museums and forming a worthy setting for them. The example of this capital "village" clearly shows the basic principles that guide the owners of garden plots, their taste preferences, traditional or non-standard solutions.

In spite of geographic coordinates

Let's make a reservation right away: despite the more northern position of Norway in relation to the Moscow region, the climate in most of the country (with the exception of the northernmost provinces) is much milder than ours. The temperature in winter here does not exceed -2 … -5 degrees of frost, and summer does not exhaust you with excessive heat. The warm Atlantic current allows the Norwegians living on the coast to grow plants that are absolutely incredible for this geographical latitude.

So, for example, in the Sogndalen Valley, on the very shore of the Norwegian Sea, thanks to the Gulf Stream and the cover of the mountain range from the mainland, absolutely amazing microclimatic conditions have been created, almost equal to the subtropics: grapes grow here in the open ground, and apple trees and pears, perhaps, no less. than in some Crimean state farm with the telling name "Fruit".

But by geographic coordinates, this is comparable to our Kandalaksha! Apple trees, pears, grapes also grow in Oslo (grapes, however, only in greenhouses), giving the owners of cottages, mainly, horticultural and aesthetic pleasure, since Norwegians prefer to buy fruit in the store.

A purely ornamental plant that successfully winters on the Atlantic coast of the Scandinavian Peninsula thanks to the Gulf Stream and is an integral part of cottage landscaping in Norway is the yew (Taxus spp.).

Yews are generally very popular in Europe, especially in its warm part, where, perhaps, not a single old park can do without hedges from this plant. The plant is dioecious, i.e. it has male and female specimens.

Norwegians prefer the "yew ladies" with their absolutely gorgeous red berries and glorious needles. Yews are widespread in Norway, in particular in Oslo, and are second only to thuyas in popularity. Yew is loved by landscape designers because it is shade-tolerant, belongs to evergreens, is suitable for creating topiary forms and has a great variety of varieties with different crown shapes, up to stunted and creeping forms with colored needles. Unfortunately, berry yews are not able to survive our Russian winter. Only those caring gardeners who are ready to spend a lot of time arranging a "warm wintering" for this plant can decorate their plot with them.

Another option exists for the owners of winter gardens: for the summer, berry yews, being planted in a winter room in pots, and not stationary, may well move to the open space of the personal plot, giving it a fair amount of splendor and originality. However, it would be more correct to plant pointed yews (Taxus cuspidata) and medium (T. x media) in the garden of our middle strip, rather frost-resistant and, due to circumstances, capable of replacing capricious berry yews.

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Thanks to the Gulf Stream, residents of Norway can afford luxurious species of honeysuckle (Lonicera spp.), Again, unfortunately, not wintering in the Moscow region and in the North-West. The most winter-hardy and therefore common honeysuckle honeysuckle (Lonicera caprifolium) in the world of other representatives of this genus is just a little Cinderella, tempered by all kinds of meteorological disasters.

There are many varieties that can please their owners with either large, brightly colored flowers (two-color, red with white L. periclymenum), or bright spherical fruits that retain their decorative effect until winter frosts (L. korolkowii). In the neighbors of honeysuckle, the Norwegians boldly take the beautiful southern liana campsis rooting (Campsis radicans), living in the territory of the former Union in the Crimea and the Caucasus and therefore, most likely, familiar to everyone.

Unfortunately, in more northern regions, the kampsis will freeze over without additional shelter, and even if it partially regains its shoots, you are unlikely to wait for it to bloom. In addition to lianas, Norwegians love a rather cute and graceful obelia (Obelia sp.), Which we meet as a indoor subtropical plant.

However, the climate does not always pamper Norwegians with exceptionally warm and comfortable winters. The mountainous regions of the country suffer from severe cold weather, and many settlements on the coast closer to the north - from the violent activity of winds produced by frequent encounters of atmospheric fronts over the Atlantic.

This gave birth to the tradition of planting whole lawns on the roofs of houses: a rather thick layer of earth, fastened by the roots of lawn grasses - a reliable guarantee that the roof of the house will not "leave" during the wind season and, in addition, additional thermal insulation.

Norwegians are so accustomed to these funny roofs - flower beds that even today, in the age of high technologies, when heat can be achieved in much simpler ways, they continue to plant grass on the roofs of brand new cottages. The absence of an urgent need to insulate in this way makes it possible to talk about such lawns exclusively as a traditional Norwegian design technique.

Due to very strong winds, plants are also tried to be planted closer to the walls of the house. The favorite of the Norwegian villagers, lilacs bloom here much later than in Russia, so if you arrive somewhere in Tromsø in early July and find blooming lilacs, you can relive the spring …

Greening "from the mind"

The design of the garden plot is dictated by the climate only by about a third. All other features are determined by the national mentality.

The Norwegians are characterized by significant restraint and monochrome compositions chosen for the decoration of the site. The well-known clematis (Clematis sp.) Are often used for vertical gardening in all countries, but in Russia you will often find bright, large-flowered varietal varieties of this plant (varieties Minister, President, Rouge Cardinal, Ville de Lyon and many others). Norwegians prefer much less "flashy" representatives of the genus, such as straight clematis with medium-sized four-petal flowers or Tangut clematis.

At the same time, in Norway, the decoration of one vine by another is often used - a technique that is certainly familiar to our landscape designers, but for some reason it is still not very common in Russia. But such a combination of two vines with different properties guarantees you the achievement of maximum decorativeness. Clematis, for example, is very good to plant together with a girl's grape, which densely braids the entire hedge, but does not bloom, and clematis, which does not have such abundant foliage, will complement the composition with flowers and later decorate it with its very cozy puffs.

Hops (Humulus lupulus) are widespread and very popular in Norway - a plant familiar to everyone and undeservedly forgotten here. Fragile hop shoots live only one season, during which they manage to develop a lush crown with carved leaves and decorative inflorescence cones, but its rhizome is perennial. Hops are very good for decorating pergolas, gazebos and green tunnels. Getting its seeds is easier than getting a scion, try this route and in the middle lane the hops will give a more lush crown than on Norwegian soil.

Another perennial vine that fully corresponds to Norwegian ideas about exterior decor is the Aubert Highlander (Polygonum aubertii), a plant from the buckwheat family, with small white flowers in racemose inflorescences and pretty heart-shaped leaves. A discreet and vigorous liana looks very decorative on any supports, even those that do not differ in grace.

Particularly pretentious mansions belonging to the Norwegian elite are traditionally decorated with beautiful garden pots. The choice of plants for such flowerpots is practically unlimited, but all of them, as a rule, are "lined" with ivy (Hedera helex).

Ivy, as an inhabitant of flowerpots, has warm feelings not only for Norwegians, but for the whole of Scandinavia in general. At the same time, in Helsinki, it is customary to plant it together with small roses, in autumn Stockholm, ivy is often found in the society of chrysanthemums, reckless Danes stick artificial copies of this plant into street flowerpots, and in Oslo they prefer a combination of ivy and begonias.

Aristocracy in Norway is quite rare, which, however, is not surprising, given the history of the country, which only in 1903 ceased to be considered a Swedish colony. For this or some other reason, most Norwegians living in the capital prefer a rather free style in the exterior, reminiscent of the liberties of rural life.

In this regard, they often allow themselves to grow, for example, sunflowers under the walls of their completely secular city cottage, located, I recall, in the very heart of the capital. Russians today do not seek to emphasize their peasant roots, decorating plots accordingly, and you can see sunflowers near the house, most likely, in the context of the country style, next to the decorative wattle fence, picturesque pots, turned upside down and stylized country architecture of everything dwellings.

Living without fences

Walking along the streets of the Bunday Peninsula, very well-groomed thanks to the efforts of not only the inhabitants of the cottages, but also the local municipality, one can only sigh with admiration at the pleasant absence of fences so typical for Russia. Our massive "site walls" have been successfully replaced with hedges made of thuja, junipers and other, mainly coniferous, plants. Due to the absence of sharply delineated boundaries of the plots, it seems that the houses are just in some kind of sparse forest, at ease and naturally.

Tui (Thuja spp.) Is a favorite object of landscape architecture. Depending on the goals that the landscape designer pursues, you can choose from a variety of varieties of thuja, which are used to create hedges, and for group plantings, and as tapeworm plants. Thuja cultivars used as hedges have many useful properties, such as compact, dense branching from base to top, durability and rapid growth, allowing this hedge to form in a fairly short time.

Thuja western "Smaragd", which means "emerald", retains an amazingly bright color even in winter. Norwegians, striving for the most part for environmental friendliness in everything, prefer this particular variety of thuja, with a pyramidal shape. These thujas grow slowly and most often do not require cutting.

Tui - plants in Russia are no less popular than in Norway, but there are noticeable differences in attitudes towards the methods of planting them on the site. So, for example, in Russia young thujas are rarely planted - even for a hedge they try to pick up seedlings at least a meter in size, despite the significant difference in price.

Perhaps it is the desire of Russians to see the result of their labor as soon as possible. Well, Peter I at one time, laying out the first regular parks in Russia, also planted mature trees and was quite successful in this, so we will consider the desire of our fellow citizens to plant grown specimens of tui as a Russian national trait.

The experienced eye of a landscape architect will also note another peculiarity in planting thujas on plots near Norwegian cottages: they are planted too wide for Russian standards. We have a planting density of up to three pieces per meter to create more dense hedges.

Thuja should be planted in partial shade, and the soil for them should be fertile and well moistened. Caring for them consists in periodically cutting the plant and feeding it with complex fertilizers annually.

So far in Russia in private possessions there are no thujas of such a gigantic size as in the Norwegian capital, since the boom of cottage gardening began in our country not so long ago. Some Norwegian thujas are already at least 30-40 years old: it was then, in the early seventies of the XX century, that the northern shelf oil became available to Norway, and the standard of living of its citizens rose sharply, which did not hesitate to affect landscape architecture.

Well, those Russians who took care of the beauty of their site in the early 90s have not long to wait for 2-3 meter thuja trees …