The garden and arboretum
About an old garden
“Do they know where Milde located? A little south of Bergen , by the fjord, right by the shipping lane. Milde is the terminus for a bus route, and there is a folk high school there.
The school is built around an old farmyard, and the school's principal lived in the old main building from the 1700s. No one could live in a more beautiful house. From the white old main building on the hilltop, the green garden curves in slopes down towards the road, towards sun and wind.
People are careful not to over-maintain their gardens, they should rather let them take care of themselves for so long that no one really knows what is maintenance and what is natural. And with that I leave aside common everyday speech and everyday sensible information. It is not possible to tell about crocuses and lilies and Spanish chervil and old trees on Milde with ordinary language. For it is not an ordinary garden and not an ordinary crocus bed that we are entering. We are not walking around the crocus bed on Milde , we walk in it. The crocus grows in the meadows, between the trees, on the garden paths themselves, they thrive in the gravel and they multiply in the shade and they bloom in the sun. You have never seen the like. Wild crocuses are small and bright in color, and when they come in thousands and millions and stand cheek to cheek under bare trees, it seems as if a piece of the sky had fallen down, as if the air had condensed and lay down to rest between gray trunks. Like a fairy tale from olden days, like a piece of music on crazy instruments, like a painting by a Dutch master, like a serenade on a spring evening, like a yellowed love letter that still makes a white-haired lady cry with sadness and joy, such is the garden of Milde .
Under the sweeping sky of Vestlandet, surrounded by the violet-hued air that belongs to Vestlandet, in a wave of regret and scents from rare things and ordinary things and weeds that grow, in a frame of 1700s harmony, the quiet garden sings a song about vanity and eternity, about people, about the grace of spring, about the inevitability of winter, and about the elusiveness of beauty, for all who have senses to sense with …”
Text by Zinken Hopp.
The Arboretum
The school's closest neighbor is The Norwegian Arboretum.
An arboretum is a collection of trees and shrubs that are grown outdoors for the purpose of research, education, and testing of plants in our climate. At the same time, it should be a source of joy, provide nature experiences, and stimulate increased interest in science and botany.
The Arboretum at Store Milde has the largest collection of rhododendrons in the Nordic region with about 600 cultivars and about 300 species. They also have the largest rose collection in Norway with over 500 varieties. Here are exotic shrubs and trees from North America, East Asia and the southern hemisphere, all the world's heather in the Lynghagen and historical garden plants in the Blondehushagen.
The exhibitions in the Arboretum and Botanical Garden are open to the public all year round. The collections include more than 5,000 different plant species. There are also excellent hiking trails and good swimming opportunities!