We have made this website to tell you about our garden and to show you some of the plants we grow in it. We have lived in Herskind, which is a village 15 km west of Aarhus, for approx. 35 years. Through the past 25 years, we have gradually changed the garden from a vegetable garden and lawn into the present garden with many rockeries and no grass. The garden is 900 m² large so the changes have taken place as our interest for growing rare plants on limited space increased. This is our hobby – we are not gardeners or botanists but amateurs who love plants.
When we call the website “Alpines”, it is because we are very interested in alpines and in how to grow them under our conditions. As a rule, alpines are plants which grow in alpine conditions, i.e. in the mountains and most often above the tree line. They are most often relatively small plants so it is possible to grow a lot of them on limited space.
In order to learn more about how to treat these plants, we joined various associations approx. 20 years ago: The English Alpine Garden Society with its Danish division “Den Alpine Have”, the North American Rock Garden Society and The Scottish Rock Garden Club. These associations all publish periodicals which offer tips for growing the various plants and articles about the original habitats of the plants. The Danish association regularly arranges events and garden tours where it is possible to get inspiration and share experiences. We have also enjoyed visiting Gothenburg Botanical Garden with alpines to broaden our knowledge about growing alpines through them.
Throughout the years, we have traveled to many different European mountain ranges – from the Pirin Mountains in Bulgaria to the east to the Pyrenees and Sierra Nevada in Spain to experience the plants in their natural habitats. Unfortunately, these trips always had to take place during the spring/summer where it is difficult for us to be away from our own garden. We have therefore enjoyed traveling to the southern hemisphere during the winter where we were able to be away for 3 weeks or more without having our garden suffer for it. We have been to New Zealand and Lesotho in South Africa. We have especially enjoyed traveling in Pantagonia (southern Argentina and Chile) which we have visited 8 times during the past 12 years. It is an interesting area in regards to nature and plants and we have chosen to make a section with pictures from Pantagonia.
Kirsten Andersen og Lars Hansen