IT’S said that travel broadens the mind. Certainly for gardeners it broadens your horticultural horizons. I’ve had a peripatetic year being inspired by gardens, some in more unexpected places than others.
2016 kicked off with a visit to Tasmania and lunch with my gardening writer colleague and friend Jennifer Stackhouse.
Jennifer and her husband Jim recently did a Tree Change from the lower Blue Mountains to Barrington and Jennifer’s chief delight is at last having a garden with decent soil.
“My spade just keeps sinking!” she said, thrilled. I was deeply envious. Her classic Aussie country garden filled with trees, shrubs and roses is a testament to hard work and topsoil that goes down for ever.
Tropical Sri Lanka also has areas of high fertility but the tremendous heat makes life hard for gardeners.
It was 40C last April at Sigiriya Rock, where I walked among the remains of the extraordinary garden built by King Kasyapa (477-495AD) around his palace, on top of a 200 metre high monolith.
Luckily there were abundant wells to keep people and plants from dying of thirst. You can make a garden anywhere if you have enough water. Water is hardly a problem for Scandinavian gardeners, the limitations here are short summers combined with arctic winters.
Many parks were imaginatively planted with perennials and ornamental grasses, a far cry from old-fashioned formal bedding limited to begonias, geraniums and petunias
However most houses have small gardens, and if you’re short of land you can make one on your roof. We saw numerous houses with turf roofs during our July visit. Traditional turf roofs were made from sheets of impermeable birch bark covered with two layers of turf, the lower inverted to provide extra growing media.
Hardly surprisingly these were a tremendous fire hazard, and city fires regularly destroyed Norway’s former capital of Bergen. Luckily the invention of bituminous roof linings have greatly reduced this hazard and turf roofs are increasingly popular, providing excellent insulation - and an original garden, if you’re that way inclined.
An ornamental garden, even on a roof, is a product of economic security. Norway has one of the highest per capita incomes in the world (thanks to well-managed oil reserves that benefit the entire population) but travel to Eastern Europe and you find a different story.
The region was ruled by the old Union of Soviet Socialist Republics from late 1940s until 1991 and is still struggling to recover.
Travelling from Budapest to the Black Sea in October I saw few private gardens, but new trees are being planted in city parks everywhere. Also many parks were imaginatively planted with perennials and ornamental grasses, a far cry from old-fashioned formal bedding limited to begonias, geraniums and petunias.
New Zealand likewise is not a rich country, but it has one of the best climates in the world for gardening and as a result, a population of enthusiastic gardeners.
My fortnight there in November, despite the shakes, was the highlight of my globetrotting year. If you want a gardening holiday, there’s no better destination.
Happy gardening and Happy New Year.
