Newsletter number 8, October 2024
Gunnebo Kitchen Garden and orangery, Molndal, Sweden
Learn about the conservation of European fruit and kitchen gardens and stay up to date about interesting events.
• Join our new online conference on November 29, that will take you to the beautiful kitchen gardens of Gunnebo House in Sweden and Rosendal Manor in Norway.
• Enjoy the presentations of the second in-person conference at Parc Broekhuizen
• Uncover and discover hidden history at the WKGN Forum in North Devon, October 11-12, 2024.
• Meet the Swedish Craft Laboratory.
Our next newsletter will be a special on the world days of the art of espalier!
Online conference Friday 29 November, 2024, 14h-16h
Our next online conference on Friday November 29, 2024, 14h – 16h (13 – 15h UK time) will take us to Scandinavia. We start in Sweden near Gothenburg where head gardener Joakim Seiler will tell us all about the beautiful kitchen garden of Gunnebo House, together with gardener Viola Johansson. Viola will also talk about the ‘slow’ flowers she grows
Gunnebo House and Kitchen Garden
On we go to Bergen in Norway. The manor Rosendal from 1665 is surrounded by beautiful and historic grounds, including a Renaissance garden, a romantic landscape garden and a recently restored kitchen garden. Professor Annegreth Dietze-Schirdewahn, Professor at the School of Landscape Architecture of the Norwegian University of Life Sciences, will talk about the restoration of the kitchen garden that supplies the manor with fresh produce throughout the season
Rosendal Manor and kitchen garden
Please register at amisdupotagerduroi@yahoo.fr to receive the link to this webinar.
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Enjoy the presentations of the second in-person conference
In September, we had the second international in-person meeting at Parc Broekhuizen, the Netherlands, of the European Symposium for the Conservation of Historic Fruit and Kitchen Gardens. Once again, many thanks to sKBL for organizing two days filled with presentations, workshops and excursions ranging from the history of the kitchen garden to rediscovered techniques. The underlying theme was: preserving the historic kitchen garden through sustainable innovation. You can find the presentations on our website: https://potagershistoriqueshistorickitchengardens.eu
Workshop at the kitchen garden of Zuylestein.
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WKGN Forum: Uncovering and Discovering Hidden History October 11-12, 2024
The Walled Kitchen Gardens Network will this year be holding its annual Forum at the exceptional National Trust property at Knightshayes. A historic property with woodland gardens and important plant collections, and an elegant, restored walled kitchen garden. The turreted Kitchen Garden at Knightshayes was laid out by William Burges in the 1870s, the original (old) kitchen garden site being used to build the current House. The ‘new’ kitchen gardens remained in production for generations before eventually being grassed over in the late 1950s – there is a huge amount of history before and since, but the National Trust began a restoration project in 1999, reopening as a productive kitchen garden in 2003. Plans are again underway to reorganise, and revitalize the layout and planting, bringing a revived interest both in the garden and to develop ideas to add new and different planting schemes.
The first day of the Forum talks will run during the morning. The main speakers include Dr Siân Thomas,Project Officer at Archaeology Wales Ltd., Will Woodman, Head Gardener Knightshayes and Lord(Julian) Darling, Owner Wood at Bishopsteignton. The afternoon will be spent in the Walled Kitchen Garden of Knighthayes with Will Woodman and his team. During the second day nearby walled kitchen gardens, including the wonderful Ashley Court, will be visited. For the provisional programme and the booking form, please go to: https://www.walledgardens.net/events-training/walled-kitchen-gardens-network-forum-2024-knightshayes/
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Meet the Swedish Craft Laboratory by Klara Holmqvist
The Craft Laboratory is a national centre for crafts and craft professionals, and is part of the Department of Conservation at the University of Gothenburg. It is located in Mariestad, where the Department offers study programmes in building crafts, gardening and landscape crafts at bachelor’s and master’s levels. The Craft Laboratory initiates projects and carries out activities in the fields of gardening crafts, cultural landscapes, and building crafts in cooperation with public agencies and professional organisations and enterprises. It also promotes, transfers, safeguards, and develops traditional craft skills in these fields – knowledge that is essential for the care and development of our cultural environments.
Every year, the Craft Laboratory gives professional craftspeople the opportunity to apply to carry out a “Guest Craftsperson Project”. This is an opportunity for a craftsperson (who can be a gardener) to study and develop a method, document a tradition or examine a material, and report on this in writing or through film. In recent years, Guest Craftsperson Projects in gardening have addressed “historical methods for cultivation of flower bulbs for cutting” and “horse-drawn gear for historic parks and gardens”.
In 2023, the conference was held in Uppsala with a visit to the Linnaeus Garden and the orangery in Uppsala´s botanical garden. The theme was biodiversity in historic gardens.
The Network for gardeners in Historic Gardens is organized by the Crafts Laboratory’s garden coordinator. The network is open to gardeners and park workers who work in, or have a particular interest in historic gardens and traditional garden crafts. The network also includes members who are landscape architects, work with garden restoration or similar areas. The focus, however, is on practical gardening. Every autumn, the Network organizes a conference during which members can attend lectures and visit each other’s gardens and estates. Particular emphasis is placed on dialogue and exchange of knowledge between gardeners. By visiting each other’s workplaces, questions arise, and conversations often begin with a practical focus. This year, the conference takes place on October 3-4 with the theme The Gardener and the city’s green cultural heritage at Djurgården in Stockholm.
In addition to the conference, we usually organize digital lectures and a couple of courses or workshops each year. An example is “Meet the Gardener”, during which we digitally visit a gardener and her or his workplace. The idea is that it should be unpretentious, generous and easy for anyone to ask questions and discuss. We have also invited researchers and authors to lecture on a garden history theme and we often collaborate with POM, Sweden’s national programme for cultivated plant diversity.
The network has about 300 members on its mailing list, some of whom from outside Sweden (mainly from Norway). Membership is free, but we charge for individual activities to cover certain costs. Over the years, several projects have been carried out in the field of gardening involving members in the network. These have resulted in several publications and films (available in Swedish only).
In 2022, the conference was held in Mariestad. The focus was on composting, ornamental plantings and care of older fruit trees and orchards.
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You receive this email because you participated in one of our (online) conferences.
Our email address is: contact@potagershistoriqueshistorickitchengardens.eu
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