Katja Malmborg

a breath of summer in the Lund botanic garden

It is rather small, the botanic garden in Lund. Situated behind a solid brick wall on the outskirts of the old town of Lund, it is like a green little universe of its own. The high, old trees shelter the garden from the city noises outside, and it is easy to forget you are in the second oldest university town in Sweden once you’ve entered through the gates.

It was late May and summer was just about to arrive to the south of Sweden. The small greenhouses were neat and well-frequented by primary school children – but really, it was the time of outdoor explorations.

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The rhododendrons were in full bloom, colorful and heavy with the drops of a light afternoon shower.

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I ate strawberries and chocolate from Malmborg’s grocery store under a northern red oak, strolled through the beech and linden groves, the width of the trunks revealing the great age of the garden.

I admired the wild early summer-time meadow flowers, everything open, saturated, the air pregnant with the smells of summer. Peonies, tulips, herbs and clovers. Even the spiky leaves of the monkey puzzle tree boasting fresh green edges.

Yes. A perfect place for a well-deserved and needed break in the middle of my interviewing tour of Scania.

my southern Sweden travels

Now that I’ve changed projects from studying smallholder farmers in the Volta basin in West Africa to bundles of ecosystem services in the Helge å catchment, my fieldwork has become both less time-consuming and less exotic. It is both nice, and a bit sad. Burkina Faso is an incredible country to get to know – however, I’ve really been enjoying getting to know my own country better too.

I am one of those quite typical Stockholm city kids who has traveled more abroad than in Sweden. My first international trip was to Greece when I was three months old. Until May, I had never been to Malmö, the third largest town in Sweden. Until recently, I had probably seen more parts of Bolivia, the US and Burkina Faso than of Sweden. The last couple of years, though, I’ve made an effort to go places closer to home, visiting friends in different parts of the country. And during three weeks in May and June, I did a proper tour of towns, big and small, all over the south of Sweden. Mainly, to conduct interviews with stakeholders from municipalities, county boards, NGOs and companies, but I did make some time for sightseeing too. Here is a summary of my impressions.

KRISTIANSTAD

Most of my time was spent in and around Kristianstad. As a town, not particularly exciting – but the UNESCO biosphere reserve Kristianstad Vattenrike! Amazing! Within the resilience literature, the reserve is seriously overrepresented as an example of successful adaptive management, with several of the now senior researchers at Stockholm Resilience Centre having published papers on it. I’ll write more about that at some later time. Now, though, let me just say: I get it. I thoroughly enjoyed the artistically designed nature museum Naturum, standing on poles in the wetland, and the hiking trails. Took a selfie standing over the Helge å river (one could say the central figure of my coming four years). And I love the cows.

ÅHUS

Downstream, where the Helge å meets the Hanö bay, lies Åhus. A cute little town, with a history spanning almost a thousand years. Beautiful, with the forests, eel fishing huts and sand in the Äspet nature reserve, the cobbled streets, and the willfully growing pine trees by the beach. This is also part of the Kristianstad Vattenrike. AND, this is where Absolut Vodka is distilled.

ÄLMHULT

Upstream in the catchment lies Älmhult, deep in the Småland forests. I spent half a day there, conducting interviews at the municipality office – but I did also take some time to visit Älmhults claim to fame: IKEA. This is where the Swedish furniture giant got started. Here, Mr. P is posing in front of the first ever IKEA store, today a museum. Otherwise, Älmhult is small, and I didn’t have to drive far to find this idyllic rural landscape close to the farm Råshult, where Carl Linnaeus, the 18th century botanist, was born.

MALMÖ

I ended up not seeing much of Malmö, which is a real shame. It’s not within the Helge å catchment, but I went there to conduct two interviews at the county board offices. With the busy schedule I had, I wasn’t able to stick around after. It was a pretty building, though. (And I’ll definitely make sure to have more time to explore the city next time I go.)

LUND

My main draw to Lund, the old university town of southern Sweden, was the botanic garden (which I’ll write about in a separate post – obviously), but I really liked what little I saw of the old town center too. Cute 18th and 19th century buildings and a huge cathedral. And right next to the train station, there’s an ICA named Malmborgs. A really good grocery store too, with a lot of organic and local produce. I just had to buy one of their Fairtrade canvas bags – it has my name on it, after all!

KARLSKRONA

Karlskrona, which lies completely outside of my study area but where I had an interview, is an old military town. Thanks to the largely intact 19th century military housing neighborhood and other well-preserved parts of the old city center, it has been assigned a UNESCO World Heritage Site. My great grandfather was stationed there during the Second World War and my grandmother spent a considerable part of her childhood there. It was really pretty, with beautiful buildings, both old and new. I can see how she, growing up in that environment, became so interested in architecture.

VÄXJÖ

Lastly, I did a brief visit to Växjö, just north of the Helge å catchment. It was pouring down the whole time I spent there, so I didn’t end up doing any extensive exploring – but from the little I saw, it felt like an ordinary mid-sized Swedish town, with an old city center, a main street, a large church and a body of water close by. I particularly liked the playground next to the church – everything had a botany theme! Beautiful, pastel colored! Probably to honor Carl Linnaeus, who did not grow up in Växjö – but close enough.

leaving a home

In the middle of June, I moved. Left the apartment in Skarpnäck where I’ve lived since I was three, and moved into a new one on the edge of town, close to Stockholm University. Between twenty and twenty-five, I traveled a lot and also lived in Uppsala for a while, so it wasn’t the first time I left the apartment, not really, but. I have never emptied it. I have always had my room there, with my bed and my book shelves. For twenty-six years, it has been Home.

But now, mom was coming back from Liberia for good and I felt it was time to move on. Get a place of my own. Shed the last skin of my childhood, in a way. It felt exciting. And also: strange. A tinge of melancholy. Seeing my childhood bedroom empty. Looking so much smaller than it did when full of memories and furniture. I hosted The Last Skarpnäck Cake Party, it was a beautiful June evening and after, I slept one last night on a mattress on that empty floor.

And then unpacking in the new place. Realizing how much of my stuff is dedicated to chronicling my life. The books that I’ve read and cared about. The photographs I’ve put in albums, from before everything turned digital. All the folders of high school papers and short stories and four generations of blogs, copied and printed. Journals, CDs, earrings. Such an incredible amount of material for a biographer. I wonder what this obsession of documenting my own life says about me. Moving homes, a degree of rootlessness in the process, made me wonder about life. I have not yet finished the thought.

Hanna allowed me to plant my gazebo rhubarb in her allotment garden. I hope it survives the winter. I hope it manages to adjust to its new environment. I hope I do too.

early spring flowers in a Helsinki garden

Just a couple of days after returning home from Glasgow I went to Helsinki. For work, yes, but still I had time to visit the Kaisaniemi Botanic Garden for my own particular pleasure.

I went there with two friends and a toddler. They enjoyed the sunny lawn in front of the greenhouses for a while, but soon got bored and went to the playground on the other side of the fence. I was left to explore on my own.

It was a chilly day, spring just arriving. It was fascinating, having just been in Glasgow where everything was in full bloom, the sun was warm and where it was possible to read sitting in a t-shirt, perfectly comfortable, on a bench in the botanic garden. Not here. Mittens and hat were needed in the Helsinki May weather, even though it isn’t that much further north than Scotland. I guess it’s the Golf stream versus the lingering Siberian winter air masses.

Really nice, though, with the blooming spring flowers, wood anemones, pasqueflowers, scilla and tulips. Lily buds, just like the ones in my Finnish grandmother’s garden, promising a fiery summer. Strange and exotic plants are fascinating, alright, but there’s a special kind of magic in the flowers of childhood.

The greenhouses are made up of a main lush tropical palm house and several adjoining smaller greenhouses housing plants from biomes such as the Mediterranean and deserts, a water lily pond and even a gorgeous little room completely dedicated to African violets. My Swedish grandmother used to have these in her living room window – but did you know that they originate from Tanzania and Kenya? Just imagine, the journey they made to get from a moist patch next to a small stream in a remote tropical forest in inland Tanzania to my grandmother’s windowsill in Vårberg in the 1980s. The lengths we go to for beauty.

It is rather small, the botanic garden in Kaisaniemi, Helsinki, and I visited it a bit too early in the season to see its full potential – but still, I liked it. The garden and the greenhouses had pedagogic signs, making it both accessible and educational. And the old palm house was really beautiful. I could easily have spent my entire day there next to a statue, reading and contemplating life. This time, though, I couldn’t. I had to go find my friends at the playground across the fence. But I’ll be back. There will always be reasons to go to Helsinki.

Sundays are for breathing

I am still on my own in the new apartment. Jessica doesn’t return until tomorrow. I thought: Sundays are good for writing. I had intentions. In the quiet, put words to paper, just like I’ve been longing to do for months. But instead: Watching people walk by on the street outside. Arranging my earrings on a pin board. Reading a page in a great book, not able to read two. Knitting, watching Netflix, fingers smelling of satsuma peel. Drinking cups of tea. Having to pee.

I listened to the radio, an interview with Jonathan Safran Foer, he said: Write about what excites you. That will make it easier to continue. So many stop before they’ve even properly tried.

But excitement is a fickle thing. I don’t know how to take Jonathan’s advice to heart. Today, what excites me turned out to be organizing my earrings. And the deliciousness of colors in autumn. But that doesn’t make for particularly interesting reading.

Glasgow’s backyard jungle

I hope you’re not sick of my obsession with botanic gardens. I’m guessing, without a touch of nerdy love for plants, you wouldn’t have continued reading my writings anyway. So. Here is my second Scottish garden.

It has ha familial feel to it. As if, first, it’s a place where Glaswegians come to spend time together, on the lawns or on the benches that are placed everywhere. Second, it’s a botanic garden. So when I say I LOVE IT, I mean it for different reasons than for Edinburgh, or Kew, or Phoenix. Glasgow is friendly, just like the city, and there’s an approachability. Even in the types of plants they grew. A section with ordinary garden vegetables. An unkempt corner of different wild roses. An entire wing in one of the gorgeous greenhouses dedicated to out-of-style potted plants, like begonias or geraniums, the kinds of flowers my grandma used to have on her porch.

Like the enormous backyard of a hospitable older lady with very green fingers. I spent many hours there, sitting on a sunny bench reading.

However. Two specifically botanical things worth noting: The arboretum. I wouldn’t say that this in any way is the largest or most species-rich arboretum that I’ve been to, Kew in London for example has one that is immense. But the location in Glasgow, along the River Kelvin. I don’t know, there is something with the slowly moving water that brings out the quiet magnificence of the trees.

And: ORCHIDS. As it happened, the Glasgow Botanical Garden is celebrating its 200th year this year, and on the weekend that I was there the celebration meant hosting an orchid show in one of the greenhouses. Poor Natalia. With my camera, I went a little nuts. Totally. Whatever. Judge for yourself.

I <3 Glasgow. I think

Let me take you back to early May. The reason why I went to Scotland was not to go to the botanical garden in Edinburgh – however excited I was about getting to revisit it. No, my reason for flying over the North Sea was to visit Natalia in Glasgow.

And honestly. Scotland is definitely romanticized in pop culture, especially in movies and in TV series – but I have yet to experience anything to contradict that romantic image. Even the short train ride between Edinburgh and Glasgow, with sundrenched rolling hills, kept my eyes glued on the passing landscape instead of on the VERY EXCITING final chapters of Anne Leckie’s “Ancillary Justice”. And the joys just kept on coming:

The gritty punk-vegan bar that sold burgers and milkshake-cocktails.

The old stones of the University of Glasgow, heavy with history.

The dangerous! but oh, so alluring selection of books at Waterstones bookstore.

That the symbol of Glasgow is the statue of Duke of Wellington, with the traffic cone at an angle on his (and his horse’s) head.

The breath-taking view across Loch Lomond in Luss, and its picturesque graveyard.

The church-turned-pub with a whiskey list that went on for pages.

High tea at the Willow Tearooms – a joy for all senses.

THE BOTANIC GARDEN.

Watching Parks & Rec with Natalia, in bed, eating crisps and chocolate.

Eating proper Scottish breakfast the morning after at a charmingly dingy place, swearing I would never eat again by the end of it.

Sharing a sunny bench under a blooming cherry tree in the botanic garden with Natalia, making lists of our all-time favorite books.

The depth of green along the path by the River Kelvin.

Or maybe. Maybe. It is not the place. Maybe, it is the person. Any place is a treat, if Natalia is there. Any activity an adventure, if shared with Natalia. Any situation holding the potential for a (dark) joke, with a Natalian twist.

I don’t need to precisely define it, separate causality from co-occurrence. This is not my research. It is enough to say: I had a really nice long weekend in Glasgow with Natalia in May.

evenings are getting darker now

And I am home alone. Less than a week ago, I returned from a month-long trip across Europe, sitting on trains watching fields of maize and beech trees deeply rooted in German soils, me rushing rushing on in a blur. There is a lot to write about. I wish I had more days, some emptiness, to formulate the words, let pieces fall into place. As it is, the heartbeat never ceases, seconds turn into days and I know I am lucky. That things do not just stop. But still.

Returning home was such a luxury, though. The smell of wet, rotting leaves on the path that takes me to work. The allotment garden in its saturated early autumn green. Walking around in downtown Stockholm and finding hidden gems, never before seen, right next to streets I have walked on since I was a child.

And going out to the archipelago with good friends for the weekend, to celebrate the yearly crayfish party. The shades of grey on a rainy Friday afternoon. The lively conversations under colorful lights, trivia games, the sound of the fire. The mildness of a sunny September Sunday morning, fresh waffles and mimosas.

Having people who have chosen to be in my life, and to stay, for more than twenty years. It makes something behind my lungs quiver. I think the darkness turns me sentimental.

Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, revisited

It is raining. I’m sitting in the new apartment, by my old desk, Natalia came to visit yesterday and she said “You’re a city girl now” and I guess that’s true. I live just inside the “tullarna” (=tollgates), as the Stockholm definition of the city stands. I am surrounded by mostly hard-made surfaces and flowerbeds, not forests, and it’s raining.

It makes me think of this spring. It was intense, for many reasons – but one of the nicer ones was that I got to visit as many as five botanical gardens in three different countries. The first, a revisit to the Royal Botanic Garden in Edinburgh on a sunny day in the beginning of May.

In a way, one could say this is where it all started: My collection of botanic gardens. Sure, I had visited others before, mainly during my 2012 North America travels starting in Edmonton, Alberta, and ending in Phoenix, Arizona. But there, it had not gotten systematic yet. For one, completely missing the garden in San Francisco, which is supposed to be one of the best in the US, even though that was the city I spent most time in during my trip, is completely unforgivable.

No, it was during my visit to the Royal Botanic Garden in Edinburgh in 2013 that this obsession was really born. Together with dad, we marveled at the lush June flower beds, and how every single corner of the garden seemed to have a plan, every nook a place to discover strange and exotic plants in. And there was no entrance fee! This artistry and garden of knowledge open for anyone to enjoy – a true place in the middle of the city to reconnect to the biosphere in (as I would learn to put words to just a couple of months later when I started the master’s programme at Stockholm Resilience Centre).

After saying goodbye to dad, I then continued down on the continent and visited seven other botanic gardens, but none of them could beat Edinburgh. And revisiting it now, my opinion about it did not change. It is a beautiful place, and I could spend days there, roaming the groves and studying the intricacies of the tropical plants in the greenhouses.

Or sitting on a bench under the hanging branches of this tree, reading “Ancillary Justice” by Ann Leckie, breathing in the fragrant, humid air – for a moment fooling myself that I could be in an exotic place about to go on an adventure. Escapism, I guess, in a way – but what is wrong with that when it makes your heart beat slower and your breathing suddenly feel lighter.

I believe in the calm of a leaf. And the Royal Botanic Garden in Edinburgh has leaves in plenty.

terminally lost

It was lying by the window, curled up, gleaming blue. It must have flown in on a warm afternoon, windows open to let the breeze in, and then not found its way back out. Starved.

It’s a purple emperor (Apatura iris), from the right angle the wings take on the depth of the August night sky.

According to father’s butterfly book, it only lives in the deciduous forests in southern Sweden – but then again, the book is twelve years old and summers have gone all awry, winters too, could a Scania butterfly have caught a northbound wind and ended up lost in our aspen, oak and hazel grove by the mid-Swedish lake?

How did it come to be here, and is that why it died? Or was that just an accident, like with the silver-washed fritillaries and green-veined whites that sometimes get stuck inside the sun porch? Will there be other purple emperors fluttering among the lavender and roses now, or was that the only one?

And what kinds of little accidents does the world have in store for the rest of us?