Gardenlust: A Botanical Tour of the World's Best New Gardens by Christopher Woods

Author:Christopher Woods [Woods, Christopher]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Publisher: Timber Press
Published: 2018-09-24T16:00:00+00:00

A plant-filled escarpment filled with low-growing specimens leads to Korn’s house.

Dicentra ‘Burning Hearts’ probably boasts the most saturated flower hue of any fern-leaf bleeding heart, and it adds some of the brightest, most surprising color to Korn’s garden.

He disproves the myth that Scandinavian garden design must equate to plainness. His designs are in demand, not least because he moves beyond the limited plant palette people assume is available in Sweden and incorporates the rare and unusual. His knowledge of environments and what plants need makes him a specialist. “For over fifteen years, I have been laying out beds primarily for wild species. I am not particularly orthodox and mix plants from all over the world, as long as they come from similar environments and require the same cultural conditions. That makes the garden very easy to care for.”

Peter’s personal garden is large and filled with many plants, many of which would be categorized as rock garden plants. “I am not a plant snob. I like everything, even the tiny white plants that you can barely see. I don’t need to grow all of them anymore, though. I just need to grow everything else.”

He starts with soil. The conditions he works in are not ideal. The soil is acidic and at some spots the pH is so low that it releases aluminum, which is poisonous to many plants. Below the minimal topsoil, the ground moraine turns to mud in the wet season and to brick in the dry season. Not even weeds grow in it voluntarily. So he doesn’t weed, because he doesn’t have to. In a delightfully Swedish statement, he says, “In nature it is mostly wild boars and other wild animals that churn up the soil, creating a perfect environment for weeds. In the garden, many gardeners often act like a herd of wild boars.” All of his cultivated areas are elevated by at least 8 to 16 inches (20 to 41 centimeters) of sand or peat, horse manure, and sand. “I just put the cultivation beds on top of the original soil, which makes the job easier. Then I don’t need to ponder what is underneath.” He gardens up, and he also gardens down, sometimes digging up to 10 feet (3 meters) of soil away to expose the beautiful rocks beneath. He likes to move big rocks around. He makes it sound easy, but it’s just him, a pickax, a wheelbarrow, and a shovel.

Korn’s love of woodland plants tempers his deep attraction to exposing rough and barren sections of the earth’s crust. Even in his heavily sand-amended soil, plants thrive of the Gentiana sino-ornata group, Corydalis flexuosa types, and, surprisingly, Meconopsis sp.

Fortunately for Sweden—and for the rest of us—Korn’s personal garden is open to visitors and his work can be seen in an increasing number of public and private gardens. He is a self-effacing genius who sums up his work with characteristic modesty: “It’s interesting what you can do with a shovel.”

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