Stockholm in summer is a city of soft greens, still water and granite. There are so many lakes and such a lot of sea. My trips to this city are usually in summer when the leaves have turned from bright spring green to a sun bleached khaki and the bees have more flowers than they know what to do with. There are pigeons purring, crows cawing, geese congregating and ducks gliding about on the lakes. There is grass, and lots of it, something we take for granted in New Zealand where it grows all year round.

I'm back home in Wellington and it's winter. Seven weeks ago I was in Sweden.

In New Zealand our winters are short-lived compared to Swedens. Our winter is measured in weeks. We have grey days and grey weeks. We have weeks when it feels like the rain and wind won't stop, but it does. We complain and whinge about the cold and wet and wind and damp and some places get snow and ice and most places south of Auckland get frost. We often have excellent autumns with stable weather and clear days. On the first of June we start counting down to the shortest day. It isn't a long wait, being only 22 days into winter. Then slowly the days get longer.

In New Zealand we don't know what winter darkness is. Sure, down in the south of the South Island the daylight hours in winter are shorter than in the north, but they don't last long and there is always day. In Sweden the winters can be long and dark and harsh and never-ending. Winter is measured in months. Often the sun never arrives, instead there's a kind of twilight, dusky dimness. That's why spring and summer are so celebrated. They mark the arrival of the light.

My holiday in Sweden began near a lake at my step-son's house, in a suburb of Stockholm.

The lake photographs were taken on my phone, pausing during my morning runs. I was jet lagged and struggling with the extreme heat. Lucky for me there was a lot of shade. A lovely dappled shade so different from the New Zealand 'bush'.

I love the dark water and the reflections and shadows cast on its surface. I love the lily pads and wild grasses and flowers. I love the variety of trees with delicate lacy leaves and graceful branches.

Then we moved from my step-son's house in the suburbs to my in-laws apartment, right in the heart of Stockholm and I got the opportunity to visit a special garden.

The view from the Djurgården ferry, looking back at Gamla stan, where I got on.

The view from the Djurgården ferry, looking towards the island of Djurgården. There is a fun park, Gröna Lund, beside the ferry stop.

I visited Rosendals Trädgård with my father-in-law. Trädgård means tree garden. Rosendals Trädgård is a market garden. Many of the vegetables, fruit, herbs, and flowers grown in the garden end up in its cafe.

Getting to Rosendals Trädgård was a marvellous journey in itself. A short ferry ride across the harbour to the island of Djurgården and a short walk past a zoo, grand old houses and through a forest. We passed this marvellous black house, looking like something out of an Astrid Lindgren story, sitting amongst old oak trees. You can see that one of the trees has a big hole in its trunk that has been filled with concrete. I guess this is to make it strong and stable. A number of old trees in the area had been given the same treatment.

The entrance to Rosendals Trädgård. The pink building may be part of the castle, Rosendals Slott. I love the wooden fence and wish we could buy fences like this in New Zealand.

The roses were coming to the end of their season. The summer had been so hot and dry that flowers were flowering themselves to death early.

Rosendal garden is a certified organic garden. It uses biodynamic principles.

Biodynamic agriculture, according to Google, was developed by Rudolf Steiner in 1924. It's organic farming (composting, adding manure and other 'natural' things to the soil and avoiding the use of chemicals) with a bit of mysticism thrown in, such as: gardening according to astrological charts and harvesting 'cosmic forces' by burying a cow's horn, stuffed with ground quartz, in the soil and other similar rituals.

The photo above and below show some of the market gardens where herbs and vegetables are grown.

I was intrigued by the hops I saw growing up wooden poles. I'd like to have a go at growing this vine. It grows very tall. I wonder if I can find poles that are long enough and, if so, whether they would get blown over by the Wellington wind.

There were many hedges at Rosendals, which were used to seperate sections of the garden. Some, like the picture above and below, were used to create garden rooms.

Like the sign above says, many of the trees in the orchard are very old. The oldest dates back to 1869. 1869!!! Maybe that's not so old in Swedish terms but in New Zealand terms 1869 is very very old. These fruit trees are beautiful, with their wonderful gnarled trunks. 1869 is when War and Peace was published, Jesse James robs a bank and the Suez Canal opens.

Sweden had had a hot dry spring and start of summer. By the time we arrived in Stockholm the grass was starting to brown. This pond at Rosendals was low in water, which is very evident in the photo below.

There was a long flower border, which was in the process of being weeded while I was wandering along it. You will see lots of weeds growing between the flowers. I wonder what the gardeners do with the weeds once weeded? Maybe they compost them or make a weed tea from them. Maybe they bury them in the ground.

One of the glasshouses has been turned into a shop.

As my father-in-law and I left the gardens we noticed that a seagull had landed on the weather vane. We waited and watched and hoped that the dragon would fly off with the seagull. Rosendal was the sort of garden where flying dragons seemed entirely possible.

There was a magnolia in flower in the Wellington Botanic Garden this morning. Wellington is grey and cool and damp, but spring isn't far off. There were daffodils in flower and tulip leaves, little spiky tufts, poking up through the soil.

Yesterday I pruned my roses and planted my new greengage tree, which arrived while I was overseas. I finally chopped down my plum tree after talking about doing so for years. If it's any consolation I felt guilty. There were new buds on the plum branches and in a few weeks there would've been white blossoms. But the plum had to go. It was was planted in too dark a position. It wasn't self fertile and a bug was destroying its leaves.

I have high hopes for my greengage plum. I have found it a sunny, sheltered spot. I planted it with lots of compost, gave it a long drink of water and mulched it with pea straw.

Incidentally, Waiere Nursery, who sold me the greengage, send out wonderful informative emails. With the death of the local independent garden centre comes the need to source interesting plants from other places. Online is the way to go.

Plum Reine Claude De Bavay MB. This is a European Greengage plum grown widely in France. It's a heritage plum originating in Belgium in 1832. It's self fertile. I bought it online from Waiere Nursery.