Sofias Country Gardens

Each year Amsterdam hosts a wonderful festival for garden lovers, when during the third weekend of June the city opens up some 30 city center gardens for visitors. Last year I had the opportunity to visit, and it was beautiful! Some of these gardens belong to museums, but many of them are private and therefore unavailable to the public during the rest of the year. This year the event will take place on 14-16.06.2019, and I warmly recommend it to any garden lover! Tickets to t

This winter I travelled to Mexico and visited the Hacienda stouta de Peon, a historic sisal plantation and museum. Sisal (Agave sisalana) is the plant material most widely used in rope production a few hundred years ago, when seafaring was at its zenit as the need to transport goods across the globe grew due to world wide industrialisation. Sisal is a strong material that has a unique capacity to withstand wet conditions and saltwater degradation, making it the material of ch

I must admit I found Paris Botanical Gardens to be just as grand as they sound, but what else would one expect from one of the most beautiful and romantic cities in the world? It is part of the Natural History Museum and contains in addition to the botanical school also an iris garden, a rose garden, an alpine garden and two greenhouses. My favourite part of a botanical garden is always the systematic beds where plants are organised according to how they are related. It is su

When I asked at the hotel I was staying for directions to Bologna botanical garden, the concierge looked at me with a firm look of disapproval. "It is not one of Bolognas beautiful gardens," he said, "you would do much better going to Giardini Margherita!" As I collect botanical gardens, I wasn't persuaded and once I got there, I was happy I made the effort. It is a sweet little university garden, that focuses on teaching while also including little bit of wildlife conservati

While travelling through the Sacred Valley in Peru, we spent a delightful day visiting Maria and Josef del Pilars wonderful corn farm Sarapampa, at Casa Hacienda del Maiz. The farm was established three generations ago by Josefs grandfather, and is still today a thriving family enterprise consisting of some 40 hectares of cornfields and land, as well as a wonderful farm to table experience for travellers. It is situated some 20 km from the village of Pisaq, with easy access a

Pisac is a village in southern Peru's Sacred valley region, so the odds are that few people stumble upon the jewel of a botanical garden that lies mid town, hidden behind the market in it's own little world. It truly is a secret garden gem, hidden away behind the walls of houses on tree sides and the garden wall on one side. Above the entrance there is a sign, but to gain entry you have to ring a bell hanging by the gate and wait for someone to come and open it. Entry is 10 S

I love to visit botanical gardens when I travel, and actually it is a hobby of mine to collect botanical gardens from all over the world. Well, of course I can't take them with me, but I can take pictures that will inspire me for years to come in my gardening endeavours. One of my all time favourite botanical gardens lies in Amsterdam, and I always go there no matter what time of the year I happen to be visiting. Last year, just before Christmas, I went to see my godfathers w

As far as garden inspiration goes, I think that hotel gardens are a vastly underrated source of ideas and inspiration. I guess we take for granted that when we stay at nice hotels, the surrounding gardens should enhance the experience. However, there are few settings that are as challenging to design as a hotel garden. It needs to provide a beautiful backdrop to the amenities, both hiding and enhancing the surrounding buildings. A well designed hotel garden has many of the el

In late October last year I went for a long weekend to see my friends Didi and Marc in Suffolk. They live in a lovely house with origins in the 15th century in Brandish, Suffolk, England, with their children, dogs and geese. The gardens are vast and wild, a mixture of large trees, lawns and shrubs framed by an old moat that circles the house and barns. The driveway is lined with beautiful old round stones, that have been on the farm for ages and ages. Some of the old barns ha

Last summer I went for a weeks holiday to Sweden. It is one of my favourite travel destinations, and I always take a day or two to enjoy Stockholms archipelago in summer. It is known for the beautiful old wooden villas dotted along the seaside. I feel they sit like gem stones in a necklace along the coast, pleasing to the eye and bringing joy to the heart. One such villa is Villa Gustafshäll that belongs to my friend Magnus, and last summer he kindly invited us to spend an af