Gunnebo House (Castle) & Gardens

Image - dwedishgardens.se

This for me started out as one of those journeys where, "Oh man, not another boring trip to Göteborg and viewing the sites of some ancient historical rich European Aristocrat"  For me, once you've seen one castle you've seen them all and I don't care what country it is located. I learned this the hard way back in 1976 when a friend of mine and I came to Europe and hit almost every famous Castle Landmark to be found on a tourist map. Besides , I hate going to town (Göteborg) or any other city on the planet for that matter. So I would have prefered staying home, but the reality is I'm glad I went. Besides we were going with some good friends we haven't seen in a long while.

For a further read on the actual estate, when built, who built it and so forth, please visit this website. I won't be going into those particulars much here.

http://gunneboslott.se/english/the-house/history-of-the-estate 

Okay, let's get through some of the formal gardens and buildings settings first. This first picture is of an Oak Tree native to Sweden called Quercus robur. It's the most common found all over Europe and goes by many common names. What intrigued me most about this particular tree was the many wildlife features like holes and other cavities for various birds and small animals to live. Something that I find rather lacking in most Swedish woodlands that I've seen since forst moving here. This oak was on the pathway walking up to the Estate. Incredible oak and one that under the right circumstances makes a straight tall trunk which is perfect for lumber, unlike the numerous species of Oak I grew up with throughout California which are always tristed and contorted.

Image - Mine

Then just below this tree was this nature sign explaining a bit of what I already figured out by just looking at the tree.

Image - Mine

Translation: Ek (Oak)

"For a few thousand years, the oak was the most common tree in the western Swedish deciduous forest. An oak can be very old, at least 1,000 years."

"In the dense oak forests oak tree growth habit is a straight trunk and narrow crown. Stand alone out in the open oaks, have a short, rough trunk and very broad crown, with a typical large round appearance."

"The oak harbors very rich insect life. In England it has about 600 species of insects associated with this oak. There are many endangered insects in Sweden, especially beetles living on these ancient oaks. Several common insects are also available in oak, such as 'Ekvecklaren' (oak folding holder = don't ask, just name of insect). It is a small moth whose larvae can almost overwhelm the  trees in some years. The oak trees survives them though to form new leaves anyway."

Okay, now for more of the main estate building and formal gardens.

Image - Mine

Yeah, yeah yeah, that's me. Let's move this along and get it over with. This first shot is of our friends and their young boy below.

Image - Mine

Image - Mine

Image Mine

Image - Mine

Image - Mine

The vegetable & Spice/herb garden above is where I was roped into an interview questionaire by a young girl there whose job it was to find out what visitor impression are of the Estate Park. She asked what I thought about these gardens and I replied that I would still have to wait a bit to provide an opinion because most of these gardens, landscapes and woodlands were just beginning to emerge from their winter slumber. Believe it or not total Spring bloom was still beginning for many things. Where I come from Spring starts in February and peaks in March.

Below you can see where they actually cut down and utilized some of the Estate's woodland trees and milled their own lumber from those trees for some of their building projects like this shelter in the photo below.

Image - Mine

Image Mine

Image - Mine

Well, they've got to have something for the kids. Modern kids will only take so much of the hiking trails. This wooden cow was located just behind the horse barn. (BTW, Barn is the Swedish word for Child - don't ask, it just is)

Image - Mine

Image - Mine

Now let's take that walk in the woods. What excited me about this part of the adventure, was that it was like going back in time to what Swedish forests use to look like. Most of southern, central and western Swedish forests were historically mainly dominated by old growth Oak and other broadleaf deciduous Forests with a widely varied mixture of other old growth Alder, Aspen, European Mountain Ash, Norway Maple, Willows, etc. But oak was the most prominent.

With this type of biodiverse forest like we visted on this day, you can see first hand how the forest is alive with the sounds of animals and multiple species of birdlife, something saldy lacking in most all Swedish forests which are industrially managed with failed out-dated science-based technology which replaces the already perfect balance of the wild program. Most Swedish forests have been horribly clear cut and replaced by tree planting with monoculture of straight trunked tall pines or firs for lumber or mostly pulp wood production for paper. This will be discussed in a link at the end of this post.

Image - Mine

Image - Mine

Image - Mine

The picture above is an example of what a closed forest environment will do to any tree in shaping it throughout it's life for later usage by humans. Unlike the oak found in or on the edge of a meadow which will have a stout truck and multibranched round large crown pattern.

Take a look at these Norway Maple trees. Here's the parent tree followed by hundreds of seedling trees most likely to never make it through the canopy unless they get lucky by various environmental circumstances. Trees like these need a nurse tree. Maples won't amount to much out in the open. Mostly I've seen them stunted and shrubby looking, same with oaks trees. Very rarely do you find them volunteering out in the open. But the excess of seedlings on the forest floor does provide a food source for grazing and browsing animals.

Image - Mine

Image - Mine

Okay this photo above is an Oak tree with a tiny hole in it where there was once a branch at one time but now has since rotted out and been bored out to create a nest hole cavity. This tiny hole provides nesting for a slender dainty little forest bird which is called a Nuthatch. In fact I watched it fly in and out. I actually saw this same small birds utilizing small crevices in a rock wall up by the main buildings in a pond feature they had there with slender sandstone rocks in a dry wall design. Here is a post I've done about Nuthatches and attracting them into your landscape.

Nuthatches and Brick Porthole Habitats

These following shots are of a train that past over head, and I love trains, so had to take this shot. Also some shots of my wife and our friends walking through the meadow and some shots of forest floor thinning and then finally the old growth oak forests view at the end in all it's wild glory as we left.

Image - Mine

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Image Mine

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More nature explanations about the local birdlife and while they are not so visable in the pictures, there is a rather large Swedish forest pigeon which is similar to the ones up in the forests of Idyllwild California where I use to live. Like the California pigeons, these are extremely shy as well and hard to get near for taking a photograph, unless you have the right powerful lense to capture from a distance. These birds are nothing like their pesky nusiance domestic city dewelling cousins. They group together scratching around on the ground looking for food and look very much like a large covey of quail foraging the ground with one male as lookout. And finally the old growth Oak Woodland beauty at the end of our hike.

Image - Mine

Image - Mine

Image - Mine

Image - Mine

Now down below all that old growth Oak Woodland habitat is an area around the parking lot down in a river valley with a lake where there are a lot of natural boggy conditions. This environment for the most part is where the pure stands of Björk (Birch) and other wet habitat loving plants also prefer to reside.

Image - Mine

Image - Mine

Image - Mine

This concludes my visit, but at least you folks know what much of Europe was like long before industrialization took over and changed things for good in the late 1800s in all Europe and not just Scandinavia. 

Enjoy! 😸

Tenerife Landscaping and Nature Viewing: Part 3

Photo: Mine

This is a finishing up of our last trip through Tenerife this past February. Heading out from Peurta de La Cruz we started in San Cristobal de La Laguna where my wife wanted to see some tourist places. Interesting looking colonial type town, but extremely narrow streets, often one way direction and an almost impossible maze to try and get out of. So we left this city and made it to the ridgeline highway called TF-12 which rides the ridgeline backbone of the mountains heading through the remote area known for it's lush looking Laurel Forests with almost rainforest vegetation on the left side facing north and drier desert type vegetation on the right which was south facing. The road eventually circled around back to Santa Cruz de Tenerfie, which is the capitol of this island, then back to the hotel in Puerta de La Cruz.

The one striking feature that you can say about the buildings of Tenerife is the various striking bright colours found everywhere. A definite relief from the dull unimaginative of typical modern Scandinavian architecture back where we live.

Many of the areas driving along the north side of Hwy TF-12 seem to have a high tropical mountain temperate look about them as if in some northern South American country like Columbia, but minus all the chaos, crime and poverty so prevalent in those areas of the hispanic world. The south side by contrast has less vegetation, yet different type of vegetation as well, winding all the way down to the sea coast behind Santa Cruz. Notice many of the steep mountainside properties need a large amount of terracing if anything usable is to be done with the land. Finally at the bottom at the southern coastline the variety of colours throughout the town.

From this point we headed back and took some tour of the various neighbourhoods around our hotel to view the Spanish style homes and appartments and the type of landscaping they do to accent those buildings. Many people grow many common fruit trees like Papaya, Mango, Bananas, etc which also have a ornamental value besides the obvious food reasons for incorporating them into the yard.

Well basically this is a further view of what we enjoyed and experienced down there in the Canaries, but more colour to come on my next Bougainvillea trek in Tenerife and Gran Canaria. Bougainvillea is one of those interesting plants that doesn't necessarily need any company as it tends to make bold statements all by itself.

Just got back from Helsinki Finland today after being gone for a week. Weather this spring in Scandinavia has been wet and cold, well 50 F. That's cold for me. I'll be taking more pics of the forests here this summer and sharing some of what is left of any healthy pockets of any old growth  and also several takes on the industrial forestry which is pretty much the failed Socialistic standard fare for custodialship of nature here and will compare the two. However, it's nice to escape the failing E.U. once in a while.


Enjoy!

The Nature of Things Behind My House

Photo: Mine

One of the common sights around here are the Björk (birch) forests. This tree is a sort of pioneer tree in that it is the first to sprout up after a fire, logging or other environmental disturbance. Very fast growing and provides a shelter as a nurse plant for other trees which will eventually take it's place.

Photo: Mine

These blooms above I presume are from some type of willow native to here. But they are all part of the forest understory here. Much of the natural landscape behind our place and indeed all of Sweden is loaded with numerous ponds and bogs. Last year my wife made me go out in late summer around here to pick blueberries. They are literally everywhere. So are the Mosquitos. I was eaten alive. Never again, once is enough. These mosquitos here when they bite leave quite a welt on the skin which takes a couple of weeks to go away which at the beginning stings, but also itches like crazy.
Below here is a prime example of how important pioneer Nurse Trees are for the more permanent established old growth trees like this Norway Spruce (Picea abies) which will come to be the dominate tree later on. This is the same for every ecosystem on Earth. Sadly the scientists who who are hired to advise governmental foresters don't always respect this when the attitude of "We want a forest now, not later" prevails and they strike out on a course of action that goes contrary to the way things are engineered in nature.

Photo: Mine

Notice the photo below here shows another tree which is common here and in many places the only dominant tree in the forest. This pine is commonly known in English as Scots Pine (Pinus sylvestris)

Photo: Mine

These next pictures are of the common moss found in our woods. Mosses and lichens period are a sort of weed here. Every lawn in springtime is nothing but moss. As the temperatures warm and the grasses grow, the moss retreats into the ground. These woodland mosses grow in clumps around the bases of trees, much like the variety of moss that grew around the Redshank or Ribbonwood  Adenostoma sparsifolium at my former residence in Anza, California.

Photo: Mine

Time for a break. Hey (Hej) lookie there, I found a laminated map of the trails in the woods and a description on the back of the nature to be found here. Sheesh, who speaks Swedish anyway ?*See Footnote below

Photo: Mine

This island (it's not really an island, but the Swedes here insist it is, to me it's nothing more than a peninsula with one end being a swamp that was channeled for commercial barge traffic) of Hissingen where we live is almost entirely composed of Granite bedrock which in most places the soil is only inches thick. More on that later. Take a look at the rocks and boulders, some of which were put together to form ancient property barriers.

Photo: Mine

This next pictures are of the common small lakes and ponds for which Mallard Ducks and Canadian Geese come every year to raise their young. In the first photo, see if you can't find the mother Canadian Honker sitting on a nest of eggs. They usually will have about 7 or 8 little goslings when they hatch and come out in public display some weeks later. 

Photo: Mine

Here's what I meant by shallow soils. These tree blow overs are a common site here. If it weren't for all of the constant regular rain, very little if anything would grow here. Though there are some extreme cases here where only Heather and Juniper will grow.

Photo: Mine

Here's an example of a forest Hare who resides here. 

Photo: Mine

Here is the rather large lake behind our place for which all those hundreds of tiny ponds and bogs eventually slowly flow into, which itself feeds a small steam all the way to the harbour.

Photo: Mine

Here's an example of some old iconic 1960s Water tower architectural art work, though pathetic as it is, we give it the name "The Mother Ship"

Photo: Mine

Our neighbourhood housing complex are all duplexes of the former Norwegen Winter Olympic dwellings from Lillehammer that were bought years ago and moved to this location in Sweden by some entrepreneur builder. Here is our house which is actually the front, but it's our back yard with the large picture windows that looks like the front of a house. More pictures of the houses and neighbourhood at a later date. 

Photo: Mine

More on our garden later as it progresses with the warmth if it actually arrives this year.

* Footnote:

Who speaks Swedish anyway!