Some of you will have heard of the Kongsvoll Fjellhage (literally Kongsvoll Mountain Garden) located below the most famous mountain for plants in Norway, Knutshø. If not you can read more about this fantastic “natural” garden here:
http://www.ntnu.no/vmuseet/hager/kongseng/beyond.html(I’ve also seen a short piece about it in one of the rock gardening magazines not too long ago).
Anyway, Kongsvoll is at about 900m asl and is about 1 hour by train or a 2 hour drive from Trondheim near where i live. I visited twice this year, both times rather fleetingly and the first time, at the end of April, was still winter although i remember even this early the woods being full of Redwings, Fieldfares and other migratory birds like Dunnocks in full song.
Picture 1 shows the entrance sign to the garden on 29th April and picture 2 the same sign on 3rd July when I unfortunately only had about 20 minutes to look around.
Pictures 3, 4, 5 and 6 show views from the garden over the main Trondheim to Oslo road and railway and the Kongsvoll Fjellstue (Inn) and Biological Station. On the other side of the river a flock of Musk Oxen were reintroduced some years ago and can often be seen from the road (see
http://static.panoramio.com/photos/original/2274463.jpg). I was at a seminar at the Inn in April. It specializes in locally sourced food. Musk Oxen have an unfortunate habit of walking in front of trains and one of those was on the menu!
Pulsatilla vernalis (Mogop) actually grows naturally wild in part of the garden, but I was too late to see it this year and my old pictures are still on slides. Far better than my pictures is a picture submitted to our local Botanical Society’s photo competition in 2007. See Foto 27 in
http://www.ntnu.no/vmuseet/nathist/nbf_tla/arets_plbilde07.html. It won second prize.
