Life, with the garden
Location: Tromsø, Norway • • • Visits: May 2025
There is a vastness to the sky in the far north. Even with the mountains there, it is like the horizon is further away. The sky blending into the universe.
On my way back home from a conference on Lofoten, there were no perfect flight connections – all required leaving early, waiting for several hours at an airport, or staying an extra night somewhere. I chose to fly north, to spend a night and half-a-day in Tromsø.
Because, I knew from before: Tromsø has the northernmost botanic garden in the world. For a collector, this makes it worth a detour.
It is a comparatively small botanic garden with 25 themed collections, constructed in flower beds down an undulating slope facing the fjord, a short walking distance from the center of Tromsø. I was there in May, which means the very beginning of spring in the Arctic. The flower beds were full of blooming spring flowers. Small, nestled into nooks and crevices in the rocky flower beds.
There is something about the Arctic flowers. So many strategies developed to withstand the cold and wind and dark, hairs and growing close to the ground, small, structured leaves – all on display in the garden. Life refusing to give up to the elements.
It is a beautiful little garden. Different, because of where it is, with the small defiant flowers and the enormous Arctic sky.
Katja Malmborg 