Tallbacka in 2023 - part 3

The visitor garden

Openness is one of Tallbacka’s main ideas. We welcome guests throughout the season.

Gradually, we have created an infrastructure and a functional system to be able to welcome a bus full of guests and introduce them to our NO DIG garden. You need information boards, a good road and a wide road junction (renewed in the spring of 2023), with a turning point for the bus, a sufficient number of seats for an initial presentation and a roof in case of rain, a nice eco-loo and the possibility to wash your hands, a fully planned guide route, some snacks to offer and also something to sell. Of course, this increases the workload when there is already enough, but things are gradually becoming routine. And it is definitely worth the trouble! Although it is always exciting when guests arrive and we get tired out, the fatigue is quickly forgotten. It is a pleasure to talk about the garden to people who are interested to listen about, and curious to see, what we grow. Soil improvement is also fascinating for others and almost addictive. It’s great to meet people who share the love of everything that grows.

We have continued to develop the visitor garden in 2023 and have plans for the current year. We want the richness of species to be great; on the website we have a cultivation list, which includes more than 500 species and varieties. We are always very interested in new plants and presenting the forgotten traditional plants that are worth keeping in cultivation. We try to create small units, thematic islands, plant groups with a story. Part of this work consists of taking care of the edging of the borders and weed removal, but also the great ideas that arise when you see what “should” grow in a place and how the edge of the growing bed “should” curve! Some plants finds their place and thrive excellently, next to another plant – and so the story goes on. We have named almost all such places with their own names, which is an important part of Tallbacka’s story.