Garden history research in Sweden
In Sweden garden history has been a stagnant subject for the last 50 years, but now interest is growing again. The garden is a complex object of study, including both natural and cultural sciences. Because of this ambivalence between nature and culture it ought to be an interesting field for ethnology, but so far only a couple of studies of allotment gardens have been made. Maybe this is because the early ethnologists were busy finding traces of ancient times in the peasant's life. They might have, wrongly, considered gardens a too recent development. Ethnologists are more interested in life today, but gardens have still not been accepted as an important field of study.
There has been no active and systematic collecting of facts about gardens but in spite of that we have a lot of sources in archives and museums. Some museums have made small documentations of gardens but there is no complete survey of all garden categories made in any region.
Active research in Sweden has been made during two periods: the first from about 1910 to 1950 and the latest started around 1975. During the first period a series of documentations of gardens were made, which led to several important books. The latest period began when gardening enthusiasts became interested in old fashioned plants, particularly herbs. Then followed books, exhibitions and suddenly several students in different disciplines were working on garden subjects: gardens in ancient Rome, garden aesthetics, public parks, gardens as folk art, plant introductions and so on.
