It is said that a Japanese garden is a work of art that should be regarded like a painting, where the surroundings form the frame of the painting. Here, in the Arboretum in Baggböle, the river, the concrete walls and the beautiful old stone walls play an excellent role as a frame for our interpretation of a Japanese garden.
Just as Japan differs in many ways from the rest of East Asia, both in terms of natural geography and culture, our Japanese Garden also differs from the rest of the arboretum. The species we have gathered in our Japanese Garden are trees and shrubs that are native to Japan’s most inaccessible mountainous regions. Some of them are even found in the arboretum’s Siberia or East Asia, where they can be presented in a more authentic way. Here in the Japanese garden, we want to collect and present them in a way that evokes traditional Japanese gardening.
If we study the culture of Japanese garden, we quickly realize that both stone and water are key elements, and in addition to the river roaring in its immediate vicinity, we have also constructed a brook that ripples through the garden. It starts at the top of the slope and then dances over the stone walls to finally end in a pond. Across the pond, a Zig-Zag bridge leads us to Fredrik Wretman’s artwork 8.11, which you can read more about via the link.
In total, about 100 trees, shrubs, vines and perennials have been planted here. In spring, the slope above the rock garden offers visitors a draping of light pink flowering Prunus sargentii (Sargent’s cherry) framed by a wave of Actinidia kolomikta (Kolomikta vine). In early summer you will also find flowering Malus toringo (Toringo crab), Syringa reticulata (Japanese tree lilac), Rhododendron aureum (no English name yet), Rhododendron molle ssp. japonicum (Japanese azalea) and Sorbus commixta (Japanese rowan) inside the rocky garden.
On either side of the entrance to the garden we have planted the two species of the genus Katsura, Cercidiphyllum. “The common katsura”, Cercidiphyllum japonicum and “the large-leaved katsura”, Cercidiphyllum magnificum. A visit to the garden during fall is highly recommended, especially when the Katsura’s leaves turn yellow, and before it loses its leaves completely for winter rest, the tree emits a very unique and sweet scent. The fragrance is different for everyone but is usually likened to burnt sugar, freshly baked bread or cinnamon.
The Japanese garden was established in 2012. Before that, it was mainly Fredrik Wretman’s artwork 8’11 that attracted visitors down and into the old turbine hall of the power plant that was in use between 1917-1958. (Read more about the history of Baggböle here). Nowadays there is much more life in the area!
