Desired or despised? Garden plants in-between nature and culture Önskat eller oönskat? Trädgårdens växter mellan natur och kultur

Abstract

In the home garden, people inevitably interact with a multitude of non-human actors, including plants. Home gardeners get involved with, and affect, the growth, life and death of other individuals through activities such as weeding and pruning. In this article, the authors discuss people's everyday interactions with 'nature' in their own gardens, with a specific focus on plants. Despite their rootedness, plants do move and are moved between different places in the garden, and from one garden to another. Some plants are particularly cherished and receive special attention and care, for example those carrying a specific history, e.g. from grandma's garden. While heritage plants and many other, are often deliberately moved in by the gardener, plants also have spreading seeds, winding roots and rhizomes, making it possible for species to move by themselves, within and between gardens. The same plant can in one situation be highly desired, while in other situations despised as a fierce intruder that need to be controlled, and some gardeners describe their fight against specific weeds in terms of war. The article is based on a transdisciplinary research project, examining the interactions between people, plants and other actors in contemporary home gardens in Sweden. With ethnographic methods and using cultural analysis as a lens, the authors discuss the complex and fluid microcosm of the home garden, where changes connected to annual and day and night cycles, as well as life cycles of individuals constantly get intermingled with decisions and actions of human and non-human actors.

Keywords

Biosocial becomings; Garden plants; Home garden; Nature/culture; Weeds

Published in

Rig
2016, volume: 99, pages: 14-34
Publisher: Foreningen for Svensk Kulturhistoria

SLU Authors

• Gunnarsson, Allan

  • Department of Landscape Architecture, Planning and Management, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

UKÄ Subject classification

Ethnology
Landscape Architecture

Permanent link to this page (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/130391