M anageMent R egiMes foR L awns and H edges
in H istoRic g aRdens
Management Regimes for Lawns and Hedges in Historic Gardens
Joakim Seiler
Gothenburg Studies in Conservation 46
Cover, left: Sketch by John Hall the younger. Photo: Röhsska Museum of Design and Craft.
Cover, right: Photo: Malin Arnesson, 2017.
Back cover, above: Photo: Sarah Heithausen, 2018.
Back cover, below: Photo: Sara Gyllestrand, 2019.
© Joakim Seiler, 2020.
ISBN 978-91-7963-020-1 (printed) 978-91-7963-021-8 (pdf)
ISSN 0284-6578
The publication is also available in full text at:
http://hdl.handle.net/2077/62813
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For my Family
and the Gardeners.
Management regimes for lawns and hedges in historic gardens
This research investigates and compares eighteenth-century and contemporary gar- den management methods with a focus on the structural elements of lawns and hedges at Gunnebo House, which is used as a craft laboratory. The concept of man- agement regime is utilized for a discourse analysis of the garden through the norms embedded in the management. My research asks not only how did they do it back then? but also how shall we do the work now? The research has consisted in travelling in a hermeneutical circle, from historical sources to craft experiments of historical gardening and onwards, towards an enhanced understanding of the sources through the discoveries made in the experiments. One result of this study is the development of knowledge concerning eighteenth-century management methods for lawns and hedges which has been acquired through the study of historical sources and craft experiments. The craft experiments showed that use of manual tools generally re- quires a higher degree of skill than is needed when using contemporary tools, which typically secure the quality of the work themselves. The tool used day after day on a particular element of the garden slowly transforms the object. Some historical gar- dening crafts are living traditions and other vanished methods have been reconstructed in my study. The management affects the garden as a soundscape and this investiga- tion indicates that the contemporary power tools reduce accessibility for visitors due to the noise produced by the tools.
The conclusion of the research was that there were several dominant management regimes. The first is a regime that I call the management regime of conspicuous consump- tion. It developed during the seventeenth century and intended to manifest the social
Abstract
status of a person, like John Hall at Gunnebo House, by consumption of luxury arti- cles. The pleasure garden at Gunnebo House was an unproductive piece of land that required intense management; it was conspicuous consumption of land. Another dominant regime has been the management regime of the heritage garden at Gunnebo House since the 1990s. The aim for this regime is the revival of the eighteenth cen- tury. The conception of time, of what the eighteenth century is, is rhetorical and the regime produced a ‘heritagized’ image of a past time. In this regime, traditional crafts have been an important component and the management has developed into heritage gardening. Both the regime of conspicuous consumption and the regime of the heritage garden strive for the same esthetical ideals, the same expression and, to a large extent, the same craft practices. The major difference between these regimes is that, in the eighteenth century, the ideals, style, and craft were modern and fu- ture-oriented while today they are historical enterprises which are oriented to the past. The study has concluded in the suggestion for a new management regime, the regime of meaningful management in the age of the Anthropocene. This regime is not only focused on craft as a means to preserve historic gardens and on looking back over history and defining values based on measurements of preservation of tangi- ble and intangible cultural historical qualities; it also highlights craft as meaningful activity in its own right for people of today. It is a regime which encourages quality and sustainability that comprises and combines good practices from different pasts with contemporary concerns for biodiversity and sustainability as well as people’s sense of heritage and interest in learning from the past.
© Joakim Seiler, 2020.
Title: Mangement regimes for lawns and hedges in historic gardens.
Language: English.
ISBN 978-91-7963-020-1 (printed) 978-91-7963-021-8 (pdf)
KEYWORDS: Management regimes, historical gardening, craft, eighteenth-century gardens, lawns, hedges.
Preface
My first contact with gardening was as a small child when I acquired a few square meters of land on which to grow my own strawberries—thank you, Lasse Lundberg, for that opportunity. In the family garden I remember raking leaves and making compost with my brother and father. In school (the Waldorf school in Järna), I had a hard time with natural sci ence and art lessons. Instead of just skipping school, I went down to the school garden during those lessons and helped the gardeners. From the age of thirteen, I worked during summer holidays weeding and gardening. In high school in Norway there was a school garden and an inspirational gardener and teacher, Linda Jolly. I remember the serious discussions and the engagement with ecology and biodiversity. I also remember greenhouses packed with tomatoes in re- used milk cartons. When I finished school, Linda Jolly offered me some kind of job as a garden apprentice at the school, but I had other ideas. I replied, ‘I am not going to be a gardener’ and I sailed away! Four years later, in 1996, I started as a garden apprentice at the historical garden of Gunnebo House. It did not take long before I was enthusiastically engaged in learning to grow vegetables and safeguarding the cultural heritage in the historic garden. Twenty-three years later, I am still equally enthusiastic.
After working for many years as a gardener, I got the opportunity to become a PhD student. It was a challenge for me as a craftsperson to enter the university and for the university to harbor me. Many people have helped me on this journey of inquiry and learning as a PhD student. First and foremost, I would like to thank the gardeners at Gunnebo House and especially Daniel Lundberg, who has contributed much to my investigation with discussions and experiments. I would also like to thank the gardener Marica Wettergren, who has performed experiments and supported me
during the research process. In addition to my involvement with the garden and its gardeners as an experimental environment, I have also been part of a group of PhD candidates. Our cooperation and discussions have been an important part of my education. I would like to send a special thank you to gardening researcher Tina Westerlund, who has been a close colleague in garden visits, discussions, filming, analyzing, and as a critical reader of my texts. You have helped me to stay on track and develop within craft research. I would also like to thank fellow PhD candidate and co-writer of two of the articles, Lars Eriksson, for a rewarding cooperation.
My main supervisor has been heritage conservation researcher Gunnar Almevik. I would like to thank you, Gunnar, for all of your support, discussions, constructive critique, and guidance that have contributed to my development. Thank you also to assistant supervisor Inger Olausson for all your reading and valuable comments.
And thank you, too, to assistant supervisor Mari Källersjö for your encouragement and support.
I would also like to send a special thank you to garden antiquarian Maria Flinck, who has shown a great interest in my study and contributed to it significantly through reading my texts and providing many comments. I would never have become a PhD candidate without the energetic work of Peter Sjömar. Thank you, Peter, for the work approving me for PhD studies and for contributing to my learning as a craft researcher. During my years at Gunnebo House, Lena Vikström has been the CEO.
I am deeply grateful to you for making the PhD studies possible from the employer’s side and for the support you have shown during all the years together.
In my PhD studies, heritage conservation researcher Ingegärd Eliasson has been my examiner, overseeing my process of learning. Thank you, Ingegärd, for valuable advice along the way. I would also like to thank heritage conservation researcher Ingrid Martins Holmberg for reviewing my work and providing valuable comments at my mid-seminar. Thank you also to landscape architect Anna Jakobsson for be- ing my reviewer and contributing with appreciated observations and encourage- ment at my final seminar. Thank you heritage conservation researcher Harald Bentz Høgseth and craft researcher Camilla Groth for comments and valuable discussions on my research.
I am also grateful to all the gardening students who have been open to taking part in my experiments and contributing to my study. To include you all here would make a long list. That list is instead at the end of the thesis. Thanks to all of you! During my research I have had the opportunity to work together with a number of gardeners in other gardens and I would like to send a special thank you to Klara Holmqvist, and also to thank Sara Utter, Maria Nyman Nilsson, Maja Stjernberg, and Henrik Morin.
Thank you, also, Ingeborg Sørheim in Norway for including me on study tours and bringing motivated students to Gunnebo House.
Thank you to the Gunnebo House gardeners Viola Johansson and Camilla Wih- lander for inspirational teamwork, to carpenter Andreas Bergerson for good discus- sions on craft, and to curator Johanna Lindén for reading my work and providing appreciated comments and to gardener Johnny Mattson for good discussions on
gardens and gardening. Thank you also to gardener Lotta Ekroth for reading my manuscript and contributing with response. Thank you to the PhD candidates Patr- ik Jarefjäll, Kalle Melin, Arja Källbom, Anna Lindgren, Tomas Olsson, and Maria Nyström for interesting discussions.
Thank you to master craftsperson Mats Rosengren for teaching me the craft of the scythe. And thank you also to biologist Jonas Stenström for your contribution to my learning. I am grateful to botanists Mats Havström and Henrik Sjöman at the Gothenburg Botanical Garden for their help in surveying the plant material at Gun- nebo House. Thanks also to gardening student Katarina Ottosson for your input to my study and to Sonia Santella for information on historic gardens and garden conservation in Italy. Thank you, Leif Wallin, curator at the Nordic Museum, for helping me to get access to the tool collection at the museum. Thank you Katarina Östling, librarian for the Department of Conservation at the Biomedical Library at the Gothenburg University Library, for help with literature and references. Thanks to all of the librarians at the Education Library for your help with books and articles from near and far. Thank you Malin Arnesson for allowing me to use one of your images. Thank you Sarah Hussell for helping me with proofreading and thank you Magnus Vargvinter for helping me with the layout of the thesis.
I am grateful to the following organizations for financial support for the produc- tion and printing of this publication: Stiftelsen Längmanska kulturfonden, Brand- försäkringsverket’s foundation for research into building history, Helge Ax:son Johnsons stiftelse and C.F. Lundströms stiftelse.
I would like to thank my sons, Gabriel and Alexander, for their interest in the craft and tolerance of all my hours of study. And thank you also to my wise daughter, Sara. Finally, I would like to thank my wife Sara Gyllestrand, ceramicist and design- er, who understands what I do, for all the discussions on craft and design that have developed my understanding and knowledge. Thank you also for your patience, en- couragement, and support during this journey!
List of Articles
Chapter Six in this thesis consists of three articles:
Article I: “The Time-space of Craftsmanship”
Published in Craft Research (Journal).
I am the second author in this article. My contribution was an empirical study in the garden at Gunnebo House with time geography and an analysis of the results.
The Gunnebo case study is one of three case studies in the article. I also contribut- ed to the comparison and conclusion on the general reflections on craft and time geography as a research method.
Article II: “Gardening Craft Reconstruction”
Manuscript under review in the anthology Craft + Science.
I am the first author.
In order to take part of the material in this article please contact Joakim Seiler at: joakim.seiler@gunneboslott.se Article III: “Ways of Tacit Knowing”
Manuscript (film) submitted to Journal of Video Ethnography.
I am the first author of this article. My contribution was to provide one of three empirical cases and work on the theoretical foundation of the methodology. I also contributed with analysis of the overall results in the article.
In order to take part of the material in this article please contact Joakim Seiler at: joakim.seiler@gunneboslott.se
Contents
Abstract Preface List of Articles
Chapter 1. Introduction
17 1.1 Background 20 1.2 The research field
28 1.3 Purpose and research questions 29 1.4 Focus and delimitations
Chapter 2. Research design
31 2.1 Perspectives
31 2.1.1 A historical case study 32 2.1.2 Management regime
33 2.1.3 Management of change in the Anthropocene 36 2.1.4 Time
37 2.1.5 The craft aspect 41 2.2 Research methodology
42 2.2.1 The garden as a research laboratory 43 2.2.2 The hermeneutic approach
60 2.3 The experimental approach
60 2.3.1 Data collection and data analysis of craft experiments 63 2.3.2 I, the researcher and practitioner
Chapter 3. The laboratory:
The gardens of Gunnebo House
65 3.1 Gunnebo House 68 3.2 The gardens
70 3.3 The gardeners in the late eighteenth century
74 3.4 Gunnebo House today: The management methods for lawns and hedges 75 3.4.1 The fine lawns
82 3.4.2 The hedges
Chapter 4. The lawn
89 4.1 The invention of the lawn mower
91 4.2 Tracing the seventeenth- to nineteenth-century construction of the lawn 97 4.2.1 Craft experiment on construction
105 4.3 Tracing the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century management methods for lawns 107 4.3.1 Frequency of management
109 4.3.2 Rolling the lawn according to the sources
110 4.3.3 Scythe-mowing the lawn according to the sources 112 4.3.4 Sweeping the lawn according to the sources
113 4.3.5 Other seventeenth- and eighteenth-century tools and procedures for lawn management 114 4.4 Testing the eighteenth-century management methods
115 4.4.1 The scythe-mowing experiments
129 4.5 Contemporary management methods for lawns
Chapter 5. The hedges:
Groves, topiary, and edging box
133 5.1 Groves and topiary
134 5.1.1 Tracing the eighteenth-century management methods for groves and topiary 142 5.1.2 Experiments with groves and topiary
159 5.2 Edging box
160 5.2.1 Tracing the eighteenth-century management methods for edging box 166 5.2.2 Edging box in historic gardens today
169 5.2.3 The craft experiments with edging box
Chapter 6. Articles on methods
185 Article I: “The Time-space of Craftsmanship”
203 Article II: “Gardening Craft Reconstruction”
205 Article III: “Ways of Tacit Knowing”
Chapter 7. Garden management from conspicuous consumption to the age of the Anthropocene
220 Swedish Summary [Sammanfattning]
229 Terms and concepts
233 Plant names in English, Latin, and Swedish of the plants mentioned in the study 235 References
Chapter 1. Introduction
1.1 Background
This investigation started when the gardener Daniel Lundberg and I worked with management on the lawns and hedges in the eighteenth-century garden at Gunnebo House and Gardens, located in Mölndal near Gothenburg at the West coast of Swe- den. A discussion about heritage gardening started that led to the formulation of the research question: How were these lawns and hedges managed in the eighteenth century?
Historic gardens may be part of the cultural heritage, but unlike cultural heritage ob- jects constructed out of inanimate material, gardens are living and changing. Gardens need constant care to be safeguarded. My research investigates the historic manage- ment regime for lawns and hedges during the eighteenth century at Gunnebo House and compares and evaluates this with the contemporary regime at Gunnebo House. We know that historic gardens like Gunnebo House contained lawns and hedges, and that the maintenance of these structural elements required substantial labor and skill.
Knowledge of the historical management regime is essential to an understanding of the structural garden elements and in the negotiation of a relevant and sustainable regime in the present. Consequently, my research interest is not only how did they do it back then? but also how shall we do the work now?
The concept of management regime is used in this research for a discourse analysis of garden management. Discourse analysis is widely used as a research method within heritage studies and is here an analytical tool to disclose the management in a broad societal context and not just in terms of the practical operations in a garden (Martins Holmberg 2018; Jones & Jarrow 2013; Jacobs & Merriman 2011; Strebel 2011). The term management regime is here defined as the interwoven situation of factors that af-
fect the management of a garden or a structural element of the garden during a specific time period. What is considered to be important, unimportant, desirable, valuable, labor intensive, etc.? Factors that influence a management regime are both tangible and intangible, such as the structure of the garden, garden tools, and the climate, or the economic power, available knowledge resources, and norms and ideals. The research sets out to establish what the management regime for lawns and hedges at Gunnebo House would have entailed in the eighteenth century as well as a functional manage- ment regime in the garden at Gunnebo House today. Thus, the concept of manage- ment regime is central to the investigation (see further pages 32–33).
In this thesis, the word management is used instead of maintenance or upkeep. The rea- son for this is the intention not to limit the scope of the gardeners’ actions and knowl- edge, which the term maintenance seems to do (Sales 2014, p. 26; Sjömar 2017, pp.
85–88). The term management expands the concept of the knowledge, experience, and skill involved in gardening. The word maintenance, on the other hand, diminishes the gardener’s scope of competence. The former director of the National Trust, John Sales, also dismisses the term maintenance as a description of the dynamic work with living materials that is undertaken in a garden (Sales 2014, p. 26). However, I use the term management methods to point at the various procedures such as mowing a lawn or cutting a hedge that are orchestrated or affected by a management regime.
The concept of heritage gardening is used to point at a management perspective where the management methods are consciously chosen to safeguard the cultural signifi- cance of historic gardens. Heritage gardening can involve the use of historical tools and methods. The research sets out from the comprehensive understanding that heri- tage gardening requires knowledge, skill, and experience. Gardening is not simply me- chanical bodily operations taking place without thinking. In this thesis, craftsmanship is perceived as heritage gardening craft involving hand tools and personal crafting skill and tradition is understood as knowledge and experiences that have been developed by several generations of gardeners (Dormer 1997; Planke 2001).
This dissertation has a hybrid form between a monograph and a compilation thesis. It contains seven chapters, and one of those chapters consists of three articles (Chapter 6). The hybrid form has been chosen because the close reading of the material and attentiveness for details in the process of making has been important, and traditional journal publishing is not necessarily conducive to the aspirations for communication of this craft research.
My research is craft research within heritage conservation. The research comprises studies of historical sources and craft experiments with heritage gardening craft and leads to an enhanced understanding of historical and contemporary management re- gimes. However, in order to test and compare the historical management regime to that of the contemporary, the former has to be discovered and known.
The historic pleasure garden of Gunnebo House is used as a case study and laboratory in my research. Gunnebo House was originally built as a country house for the mer- chant Hall family in the late eighteenth century. It gradually came to be considered as a cultural heritage site during the twentieth century, first as a listed building in 1949 and
later as cultural reserve in 2003. Comprehensive restoration and reconstruction have been undertaken since 1949 and, during the last twenty-five years, craftsmanship has played a central role. Gunnebo House was chosen for this investigation based on the fact that, as Head Gardener, I could become a collaborative PhD candidate in coopera- tion between Gunnebo House and the Department of Conservation at the University of Gothenburg. The choice of Gunnebo House for this craft research was also based on the fact that knowledge development within traditional crafts and heritage gardening has been an area in focus at Gunnebo House since 1995. I have 23 years’ experience as gardener and 15 years as Head Gardener at Gunnebo House. For my entire career I have worked hands-on in the garden and have significant experience of manual garden tools over a number of years. Craftsmanship is linked to the everyday management of Gunnebo House and is not only a spectacle for public events. Another advantage with Gunnebo House as a case study is the interconnection of sources and the wide interna- tional network surrounding this garden during the eighteenth century.
The dilemma in this research is that, as a gardener in the historical pleasure garden of Gunnebo House, I cannot move to another field of study. In the garden where I work there are lawns and hedges that need to be managed. The grass grows and the hedges grow out of shape. Furthermore, the vision at the estate is sustainable management, craftsmanship, and historical credibility which imply that the choice of management methods should be in line with this vision. I am myself entangled in a contemporary management regime and my research consists of a study in construction and management of lawns in the eighteenth century and management of edging box, the grove, and the topiary.
Box means the plant boxwood (Buxus sempervirens) and edging means a low hedge that edges a flower border. The specific type of box that is edging box is Buxus sempervirens
‘Suffruticosa’, although also other types of boxwood are used for edging. The Swedish term for this is kantbuxbom. The reason construction experiments are only done with lawns is that the lawn has changed in plant composition and construction from the eighteenth century until today whereas the hedges, if they consist of the same species, probably remain more similar. Given this, eighteenth-century construction of hedges has not been studied. Even if most sources are silent about historical management, a way has to be found to manage lawns and hedges in the historic garden today.
Today, lawns are present everywhere in society and are the most widespread element of urban infrastructure. However, it seems like this lawn dominance is a modern phenomenon. In the eighteenth century, the lawn was rare and exclusive, and most grass-covered areas were productive land, such as pastures or meadows to produce hay to feed cattle in the winter. The lawn was part of the conspicuous consumption surrounded by productive land. This was the case at Gunnebo House in the eighteenth century, with large areas of pasture, meadow, and landscape garden. There were only small ornamental lawns in the pleasure garden near the house. My research sets out to explore this shift of the lawn, from being rare ornament to becoming the most ordinary green space imaginable, and the norms and technology that nurtured such changes.
My study is not about lawns exclusively; hedges will also be explored and it seems like the clipped garden hedges are part of a formal tradition. Whenever the gardens are designed to be formal manmade structures, clipped hedges are valuable elements that
enclose the garden sections. However, when the ideal garden design is more naturalis- tic, the clipped hedge does not fit in. In addition, it appears that the tradition of clipped hedges continued to some extent. This meant that old gardens were not redesigned or removed, but were still managed, appreciated, and cared for even if they were out of fashion. The historical sources and the practices of today lead to the conviction that there is still a living tradition of historic gardening and that this tradition has con- tinued since the seventeenth century. So, the garden history of lawns indicates shifts while the garden history of hedges indicates continuity. These shifts and this continu- ity will be explored throughout my research and presented in the following chapters.
1.2 The research field
The present thesis is based on gardening craft research within conservation and is therefore associated with garden history, craft research, and conservation. The rela- tion to these fields will be presented below.
Previous research within garden history
Garden history has, delimited by the scope of the historical sources, mainly dealt with other aspects of historical gardens than practice. Earlier research has focused on archi- tectural aspects of gardens and individual architects (Olausson 1993; Blennow 1995;
Andersson, Jonstoij & Lundquist, eds 2000). Gardens as aesthetic monuments and de- sign artefacts have prevailed; however, this started to change in the international con- text in the 1990s and other aspects, like the social perspective, were introduced. Exam- ples of this new perspective are The Story of Gardening (1991) by author Martin Hoyles, The Pursuit of Paradise: A Social History of Gardening (1999) by author Jane Brown and Baroque Garden Cultures by sociologist Michel Conan (Conan, ed. 2005). In Sweden, the social aspects of garden history have been investigated by art historian Catharina Nolin (1999) and horticulturalist Åsa Ahrland (2005), and their studies are relevant for my research. Ahrland studied social aspects of garden history and the gardener in the eighteenth century with the habitus concept and capital theory of Pierre Bourdieu as analytical tools (Ahrland 2005, pp. 28–29). She shows the contact between Sweden and the Netherlands among gardeners during the eighteenth century. The Dutch gar- den culture and its position within the European context have been investigated by art historian Eric A. De Jong (De Jong 1996; 2004; 2005). De Jong points in particular to the social aspects in the understanding of garden history and questions the traditional art historical approach. This traditional approach labelled gardens as French Gardens, Dutch Gardens, and English Landscape Gardens or Jardin Anglo-Chinoise (etc.), but these categories do not improve the understanding of the gardens and are now regularly questioned (Conan 2005, pp. 4, 33). For instance, the concept of “French Gardens” is fruitful to describe the geographical position of certain gardens and is used in this the- sis only with this implication and not as a stylistic label. In Norway, landscape architect Annegreth Dietze-Schirdewahn has argued that plant introductions can be seen as a key aspect to understanding the creation of historic gardens instead of art historical style (Dietze-Schirdewahn 2006). Furthermore, together with researcher of landscape architecture Lei Gao, Dietze-Schirdewahn has developed the social perspective within garden conservation and stresses the need for ‘a garden culture conservation’ which emphasizes the connection between people and gardens and not only the garden as heritage object (Gao & Dietze-Schirdewahn 2018, p. 246).
The interest in management within previous popular literature can be seen in The Garden by author Julia Berrall (1967) and An Illustrated History of Gardening by gar- den author Anthony Huxley (1978), although Huxley’s use of references is nonexistent which undermines the scientific value of the work. The interest in the history of work and gardening as social phenomenon within garden history started the exploration of historic tools. One early presentation of this topic was the booklet Old Garden Tools by author Kay Naylor Sanecki (1993). Later, the Virtual Museum: Old Garden Tools started to display a large collection of historic implements (Oldgardentools 2019a). The old garden tools provide vital information and a possible starting point for the craft ex- periments in my study.
Amateurs and enthusiasts have spread the interest for old tools; however, research has been rare. One example of research, nevertheless, is that of the German garden histori- an Clemens Alexander Wimmer. He has written several studies on garden history that present information about historical garden design, construction, and management.
Wimmer has moved from a traditional art historic approach to having an increas- ing interest in historical practice—in plants, tools, and management. This is especially evident in the books Hippe, Krail und Rasenpatsche: zur Geschichte der Gartenwerkzeuge (2012), which focuses on historical garden tools, and Lustwald, Beet und Rosenhügel: Ges- chichte der Pflanzenverwendung in der Gartenkunst (2014), which investigates plant use and management in historic gardens throughout history. In Geschichte der Gartenkultur (2015), Wimmer gives a broad presentation of different aspects of gardening based on sources from the garden library Büscherei des Deutchen Gartenbaues where he works.
Another prominent German researcher is Michael Rohde, who has been the garden director for der Stiftung Preußische Schlösser und Gärten Berlin-Brandenburg since 2004.
Rohde has carried out research in garden conservation, Gartendenkmalpflege, which is published in Historic Gardens Today (2004) and, above all, in the manual Pflege his- torischer Gärten – Theorie und Praxis (2008) [The Care of Historic Gardens – Theory and Practice]. Rohde’s research points at the importance of gardeners and management within conservation (2004, p. 278). Of specific interest for my research is the focus on ligneous plants in historical gardens (Rohde 2008, pp. 16– 37; 233–304). Wimmer is a garden historian with a focus on history while Rohde investigates management methods, restoration, and reconstruction of historic gardens today. Both Wimmer and Rohde acknowledge the importance of the original practice in gardens, as can be seen in the following quotation of Rohde:
Detailed and systematic investigations of historic working techniques and uses of materials are needed. University faculties deal above all with current methods of technology and construction of greenspace. In order to address the technical conservation issues of historic gardens, how- ever, cooperation with the faculties of garden art history and garden heritage conservation is logical but also in need of promoting. (Rohde 2004, p. 283)
My investigation is an attempt of such a ‘detailed and systematic investigation of his- toric working techniques’ that Rohde calls for (2004, p. 283).
In the United Kingdom, the National Trust has been leading the development of gar- den conservation as the owner and manager of a large number of historic gardens. The Garden History Society which was transformed into The Garden Trust in 2017 has contributed to the establishment of garden history as a field and has acted as a consul- tant body and safeguarder of gardens as cultural heritages in the United Kingdom. In relation to my research, these organizations have been important through their pub- lications Rooted in History: Studies in Garden Conservation by the National Trust (Calnan
& Fretwell, eds 2001) and Gardens and Landscapes in Historic Building Conservation (Har- ney, ed. 2014). Both books present principles, policies, and methods for research and reconstruction and point at the value of the gardeners and their knowledge of garden conservation. These organizations and their perspectives have had a clear influence on the current management regime at Gunnebo House. However, they do not specify actual management methods for historic gardens.
Research on management has been done by landscape architect Sheena Mackellar Goulty in her book Heritage Gardens (1993). Goulty dedicates an entire chapter to maintenance and management (24 pages) which is highly unusual. The approach is that the only possible way to conserve gardens is with labor-saving technology, in- creased mechanization, and ‘even herbicides and pesticides must all be considered’
(Goulty 1993, p. 79). Although the environmental consciousness is low compared to the contemporary situation, the work by Goulty can be seen as the early days of garden conservation. For instance, Goulty writes that ‘a stripey lawn can visually destroy a historic setting’ referring to the imprint of modern power tools on the lawn (Goulty 1993, p. 87). One publication that tries to describe both the principles and manage- ment is the English Heritage Handbook The Management and Maintenance of Historic Parks, Gardens and Landscapes (2007). Although both guidelines and practice are repre- sented in the handbook, management (maintenance) does not include historical tools or working methods. A strategy for the management of historic gardens is to ‘apply more mechanization and labour-saving techniques’ (Watkins & Wright 2007, p. 53).
Regarding hedge management, the following is said: ‘Powered tools are now in gener- al use, but there is still a case for a good pair of hand shears. Where time and speed are not the main objectives, shears are quiet, relaxing to use, and also good for beginners.
They are also advisable for special topiary features’ (Watkins & Wright 2007, p. 153).
The statement leads to the question: in which historical garden is it appropriate that time and speed is the main objective and not the cultural historical qualities? It seems like the choice of tool and method in management is considered to be of minor im- portance.
In the United Kingdom, Jan Woudstra is a researcher in garden history. Woudstra has investigated edging box and groves in historic gardens, which is of special relevance for my study (Woudstra 2007; 2018). Woudstra also points to the question of manage- ment (or, in his words, maintenance):
One of the most significant issues for the future is the lack of oppor- tunities for professional gardeners to learn about the maintenance of historic gardens. (Woudstra 2004, p. 261)
Since the writing of the Florence Charter in the early 1980s, international charters have been directing documents for the management of the gardening heritage (ICO- MOS 1982). However, the implementation of concepts and ideas from the charters in heritage management has been slow and inconclusive. In Sweden, the garden an- tiquarian Maria Flinck has addressed this in her book Historical Gardens: To Preserve a Changeable Heritage (2013). She stresses the importance of gardening craft for recon- struction and conservation of historical gardens. Flinck develops a relation between international charters, national legislation, and heritage practice. Historic gardens are here seen as part of cultural heritage, which is a fairly new perspective, and the work by Flinck positions gardening practice in a broader perspective as heritage practice of importance to the heritage sector.
Åsa Ahrland, who has already been mentioned, has done research on the eigh- teenth-century gardener and stated that:
Despite the pivotal role of himself and his work in gardens throughout history, the gardener’s almost complete absence in research is notable.
Knowledge born of experience, the work of hand and body, has some- how been taken for granted. (Ahrland 2005 p. 311)
Ahrland’s research reflects the historical sources and she presents a significant amount of information about the historical practice concerning kitchen gardens, orangeries, and fruit trees and little on practice connected to lawns and hedges. This priority in her research also reflects the information in the sources. Her thesis provides general knowledge on the gardener in the eighteenth century in Sweden and the perspective is historical. No comparison or relation to the gardener today is constructed. Ahrland concludes her research with the statement that: ‘The thesis shows that a skilled master gardener, with his experiential knowledge, or “tacit knowledge”, was essential to the formal and substantial functioning of the garden during the 18th century’ (Ahrland 2005). Ahrland makes statements that can be used as hypotheses for craft research in the garden. On lawns she says: ‘For the shortly trimmed lawns in the parterres, smaller sickles or garden shears were used’ (Ahrland 2005, p. 102). And on the management of hedges she writes: ‘For hedges and arbors hedge slashers were furthermore used’ (Ahr- land 2005, p. 93). These statements are tested both in relation to historical sources and to craft experiments in the garden today in my research. Regarding eighteenth-cen- tury garden manuals, Ahrland concludes that: ‘Generally speaking, much was written about what to do and when to do it, but not about exactly how to do it’ (Ahrland 2005, p.
320). The research of Ahrland has been a starting point for my study with the question how to do being key.
Andreas Nord is a Swedish linguistic researcher who writes his thesis on the Gar- den Book as Text (2008). Nord undertakes a linguistic analysis of the garden manuals from the seventeenth century to the twenty-first century. He is surprised by the lack of systematic research in garden history but points out the valuable research made by Ahrland. Nord investigates the material from a perspective other than that of the garden historian, the gardener, or the conservation practitioner. He provides a close look at the language in the garden manuals and interprets its meaning. Nord writes about texts and forms of knowledge and describes an epistemological development in
society towards transferring knowledge into writing and turning knowledge into sci- ence. The material Nord investigates is partly the same as that used in my study. Nord presents how historical garden manual authors wrote about the difficulty of trans- forming practical knowledge into words (Nord 2008, pp. 129–132; p. 238). Some of the writers point at images as a functional resource to transmit practical knowledge.
Nord is surprised by his results which show that, despite the significant change of the textual landscape from the seventeenth century until the twenty-first century, the gar- den handbooks are very much the same in terms of function, content, and language.
He states that he expected more significant differences (Nord 2008, p. 251). If the texts on gardening studied by Nord are a viable reflection of practice, the conclusion of Nord indicates that gardening practices are in many ways the same today as they were in the seventeenth or eighteenth centuries. However, this is not a general rule; it must be investigated using the sources for every single working method and garden tool.
Within the Division of Agrarian History at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, historian Janken Myrdal has conducted comprehensive research, and one aspect of this research has concerned agricultural tools. One example of this is the ar- ticle The Perfect Scythe–and Other Implements, where Myrdal conducts statistical analysis of the scythe collection at the Nordic Museum in order to develop the knowledge of their design and function (Myrdal 2005). The archaeologist Catharina Karlsson takes on a different experimental approach. She investigates the iron consumption in medi- eval Sweden with experimental methods in addition to traditional archaeological and historical methods (Karlsson 2015). The experimental approach by Karlsson has clear similarities with my research and will be further presented in the chapter on research design and also in my embedded article ‘Gardening Craft Reconstruction’.
Regarding previous research on the structural elements of lawns and hedges, the ma- jority of research has focused on the lawn, probably because it is a vital ingredient in the contemporary urban green infrastructure. There is extensive research on the social aspects of the lawn in contemporary society (Robbins 2007; Gragson 2009; Carrico et al. 2013). Furthermore, the environmental aspects for sustainability and biodiversity have also been comprehensively investigated (Jenkins 1994; Ignatieva & Ahrné 2013;
Yang 2019). Historical studies of the lawn have been another field of inquiry (Woud- stra & Hitchmough 2000; Lagerström 2012; O’Halloran & Woudstra 2012; Smith &
Fellowes 2013; Wimmer 2012, 2014). Moreover, management and lawn care have been in focus in several studies (Tint et al. 2012; Garrison 2014; Marshall, Orr, Brad- ley & Moorman 2015; Lerman, Contosta, Milam & Bang 2018; Yang 2019; Lerman &
Contosta 2019). Botany and the lawn have also been extensively studied (Del Tredici 2010; Lane 2016; Teyssot 1999; Yang 2019; Hedblom et al. 2017; Ignatieva & Hedb- lom 2018). Another significant field of lawn research concerns the technology used in mowing lawns (HUI Research 2016; Matthews, Noma-Osaghae, Idiake, & Popoola 2018).
Previous research on groves and topiary has investigated historical design, plant use, and tools (Wimmer 2014, 2012; Rohde 2008) or has focused on historical plant use (Lundquist 2007), on groves in England (Woudstra 2018), on biodiversity in urban hedges (Atkins 2019), or on Norway spruce hedges in Sweden (Westerlund & Nilsson 2019). Research regarding box (Buxus sempervirens) has been focused on the box within
art history as esthetical element (Karling 1970; Blennow 1995; Andersson et al. 2000), or on the plant material (Adelswärd 1994; Lorentzon 1998; Lundquist 2007; Woudstra 2007; Salvesen & Kanz 2009; Olsson & Rabow 2014; Ignatieva et al. 2015; Willman 2015). The garden historian Wimmer has investigated the historical management of box and the tools described in European historical sources (Wimmer 2012; 2014).
Another field of research with connection to parks and gardens has stressed the im- portance of the soundscape for human health and has pointed to natural sounds as be- ing particularly positive (Grahn & Stigsdotter 2003). Landscape architect Per Hedfors (2003; 2005) has highlighted the soundscape of gardens in the planning process for landscape architects, and garden student Tove Lindström (2010) has investigated the soundscape of the garden in relation to management. Landscape architect Gunnar Cerwén is a researcher who has developed methods to incorporate sound in landscape architecture (Cerwén 2017).
Garden maintenance also created sounds, such as the rhythmic motions of a gardener raking the gravel, which was identified as a sound that produces a feeling of care. Other sounds created by garden maintenance included the noise from motorized equipment, of which leaf blowers were the most challenging, drowning out all other sonic features. (Hed- fors 2005, pp. 282–283)
Power tools in gardens are generally noisy while traditional crafts are more silent; the different tools contribute to different soundscapes and the research of Cerwén indi- cates the potential for historic gardens as possible quiet areas (Cerwén 2017).
Craft research within conservation
In this and the following two sections, I will describe the local context from where this research project emerged and developed. A broader presentation of the theoretical foundation for my research is provided in Chapter 2, on research design (see pages 31–63). The Vocational College of Heritage Crafts (DACAPO) founded in the mid- 1990s has been a center for development of craft research in Sweden, and is the school from where I received my gardening education. The vocational college became part of the Department of Conservation at the University of Gothenburg in 2006 and the first PhD candidates were assigned in 2008. To understand this context, the conception of conservation and its connection to craft requires a starting point from the Swedish concept kulturvård:
It is important to note that the term “kulturvård” (culture + care) is not fully equivalent to “conservation”. […] “Kulturvård” is the art to pre- serve, develop and in a sustainable way use material and immaterial “ob- jects” from the past. As a discipline “kulturvård” on the one hand studies conditions for the survival of these objects from cultural, societal, sci- entific and crafts perspectives, on the other hand, studies the social and cultural processes which lead to a situation where specific “objects” are considered as heritage. The term “object” is here used generically and comprises all kinds of material and immaterial phenomena. (RED 19, 2018, pp. 6–7)
The carpenters Ulrik Hjort Lassen and Tomas Karlsson, the blacksmith Patrick Jar- efjäll, the gardener Tina Westerlund, and the mason Johnny Eriksson are all examples of craft researchers within conservation (Hjort Lassen 2014; Jarefjäll 2016; Wester- lund 2017; Karlsson 2013; Eriksson 2015, 2019). Eriksson’s and Karlsson’s research are relevant for my research since both work with a combination of critical analysis of historical text sources and artefacts and reconstructive craft experiments, and Jarefjäll is relevant with his use of film and time-geography as research methods (Eriksson 2015, 2019; Karlsson 2013; Jarefjäll 2016).
I share the methodology of reconstructive experiments and the makers’ perspective on materiality; however, Tina Westerlund is the researcher whose methods have the most similarities to my study. Westerlund’s thesis The Gardener´s Propagation Methods:
Documentation of Craft Knowledge deals with questions of skills acquisition and knowl- edge transfer in propagation work with perennial plants in the garden. The work car- ried out by Westerlund is partly a methodological study on how to document and investigate craft knowledge. Westerlund’s research and my own study conduct gar- dening research in and through craft, not only with an observer’s view on craft (West- erlund 2017). What positions my research in conservation (kulturvård) is the notion of the historical garden today as heritage and the dual position in time; dealing with both the historical and the contemporary at the same time is characteristic of conservation research.
The Craft Laboratory at the University of Gothenburg was established in 2010 to enhance development of craft knowledge and skill as well as documentation, coop- eration, and craft research. A specific methodology has been developed at the Craft Laboratory and the Department of Conservation which utilizes craft instrumentally and as a research method (Almevik 2017a, p. 8; Sjömar 2017, pp. 169–217; Karlsson 2017; Eriksson 2019; Melin 2017; Renmaelmo 2017). The methodology oscillates be- tween interpreting sources and remains, focusing attention on traces and leads related to the process of making, and hands-on reconstructive experimentation in order to test theories in practice and to register phenomena and relationships that come forth in the making.
There is a mutual dependency between the cultural object and the craft. The funda- mental principle at the Craft Laboratory is stated as follows:
Craft is a tool for good preservation of the cultural environments and the cultural environments are a precondition for the survival of many crafts. Craft knowledge needs to be practiced. Craft only lives and devel- ops through practice. (Almevik & Bergström 2011, p. 9)
In connection to this, Gunnebo House can be seen as a cultural environment of pres- ervation and as a craft laboratory. Gunnebo House has been a center for traditional craft since the mid-1990s and has had a long collaboration with the Craft Laboratory.
The two organizations started a development and research project together in 2015 with the name Kunskapsunderlag för utvecklande skötsel i kulturhistoriskt värdefulla park- er och trädgårdar [Platform for curatorial gardening in historic parks and gardens of cultural significance]. It was a three-year project funded by a number of county administrative
boards around Sweden. The project was led by me at Gunnebo House and by Tina Westerlund at the Craft Laboratory and consisted of six historic gardens in Sweden:
Gunnebo House outside Gothenburg, Tycho Brahe Museum Garden at the island Ven in the south of Sweden, Fredriksdals Open Air Museum in Helsingborg, Mårbacka minnes- gård in Wermlandia, Julita Gård in Sörmland, and Stabergs Bergsmansgård in Dalarna.
All of these gardens have been used as laboratories where experiments in historical and craft-based management methods can be performed. Key activities during the project were the running of workshops and the co-production of manuals published by the Craft Laboratory and the Swedish Heritage Board (Seiler, Westerlund & Alme- vik 2018; Lundberg & Seiler 2018; Holmqvist & Seiler 2017; Nyman-Nilsson, Utter
& Seiler 2018; Nilsson & Westerlund 2019). These activities triggered dialogue and reflection and began to establish a consensus on good practices in heritage gardening.
Previous research within communities of practice
Craft research in garden history and garden conservation is limited but that does not mean that there is no advanced analytical craft knowledge. The body of knowledge in the field of practice may be systematic but it is not communicated and accessible in the way that traditional academic knowledge is. I have tried to identify and make use of the developments in communities of practice related to my research subject. A starting point to the often rhizome links between practice environments is the network con- nected to the Craft Laboratory. There is a Swedish network for gardeners working in historic gardens and another network for cultural landscape curators. The network for gardeners has been used to communicate experiences between gardeners in historic gardens and it has been a useful platform for discussion and validation of the results of my research (Network for Gardening Craftspersons, Craft Laboratory 2016). In addition to the national network, another opportunity for learning has been participation in study tours and working tours in gardens internationally. During the research process, I have collaborated with the VEA Vocational College in Norway. I was able to conduct experiments with them at Gunnebo House and participate in working study trips to their school in Norway, to Schönbrunn in Vienna, and to Edinburgh Botanical Gar- den, Threave Garden and Estate, Dumfries House and Culross in Scotland. The main interest on these visits was the tool sheds and the gardeners’ working methods which have been useful in the search for heritage gardening methods for lawns and hedges.
I have also investigated some heritage gardens and practices in other parts of Europe and North America through websites, articles, and books (see, for instance, Scythe- connection). The results indicate that some of the traditional management methods are no longer in existence in Western Europe. This is the case with scythe-mowing of lawns in historic public gardens, for example. However, a living craft tradition is still existent in eastern and especially in south-eastern Europe. Master craftspersons can still be found in these regions. Usually, the craft is applied in the cultural landscape and not specifically in gardens (Reif et al. 2008).
Handbooks and instructions have been published by enthusiasts, experts, and commu- nities of practice. The Swedish Liehandboken [The Scythe Handbook] (Stenholm Jakobsen 2015) and The Big Book on the Scythe Part I (2018) are earlier examples of practice-based research within the craft of the scythe. Liehandboken is one of the research results from projects within the Craft Laboratory. Internationally, the work of master craftsman
Peter Vido (1950–2018), presented at the website Scytheconnection and in the book The Big Book on the Scythe Part I (2018), has had a significant impact on the development of scythe craft (Scytheconnection 1995–2019). Finally, the courses in scythe craft with master craftsman Mats Rosengren have been essential for my research.i
Another relevant historical gardening practice is pruning hedges with tools like bill- hooks, hedge slashers, and pruning hooks. Living practice of such methods has been found in the historical gardens of Champs-sur-Marnes park in France and Villa Rus- poli in Italy, and the communities of the Heritage Crafts Association and the National Hedgelaying Society in the United Kingdom (Heritage Crafts Association 2019; Na- tional Hedgelaying Society n. d.).1
Previous research on Gunnebo House
The art historian Arvid Bæckström (1881–1964) conducted art- and cultural historical research on the Gunnebo House estate from his licentiate essay in 1913 until his death in 1964. The research was posthumously published in a three-volume book in 1977.
Bæckström has a broad approach and covers many aspects of the estate in his research, such as the architecture, the landscape, the gardens, and the history. The research of Bæckström is a fundament for further studies and in relation to my investigation provides a historical background, clues to relevant text and image sources, and the chronology of the gardeners at Gunnebo House. Nevertheless, Bæckström does not provide any information about the management methods for the gardens at Gunnebo House. When the municipality of Mölndal bought the estate in 1949, the landscape ar- chitect Walter Bauer developed a reconstruction plan for the gardens. This plan is an interpretation of the original designs by Carlberg from the late eighteenth century in relation to the present physical environment in 1949. The plan has been an important document for the development of the gardens since 1949 (Bauer 1949). However, the plan also illustrates the limitations of the art historical approach (Fig. 9).
Architecture historian Stefan Günther has conducted research on the architect of Gun- nebo House, Carl Wilhelm Carlberg, and his Grand Tour and artistic program for Gun- nebo House (Günther, in press). Günther investigates the international influences on the creation of Gunnebo House in the eighteenth century with a focus on the villa and the architecture. Regarding the gardens, he covers the esthetics of the pleasure garden and, to some extent, the landscape garden. The research by Günther has contributed to my study by positioning Gunnebo House in a specific international context that will be further described in the following. The majority of the previous research concerning Gunnebo House and its gardens highlights the eighteenth century and states the impor- tance of the gardens. However, this earlier research does not indicate how the gardens were managed in the eighteenth century nor how they should be managed at present.
1.3 Purpose and research questions
As the description of the background and the research field has shown, there is a lack of craft perspectives within management of historic gardens and of interest in man- agement in previous research. Clearly, there is a gap between garden conservation and
i Mats Rosengren, master craftsman in scythe-mowing and landscape management. Personal com-
garden management, where garden conservation is comprehended as a more theoret- ical and historical field while management is a purely practical and technical concern.
Heritage gardening is, with few exceptions, neither researched nor considered to be relevant in the management and safeguarding of historic gardens. There is also a gap that needs to be investigated between historic knowledge, how the work was done back then, and contemporary knowledge, how the work is done today. Both these gaps will be addressed in my research. The research is practice based and deals with considerations between the gardening and cultural historical values of the garden in a contemporary context with regard to use, management capacity, and long-term aim for the garden at hand.
The goals of my research are to address these gaps and to improve garden conserva- tion, and to elicit the importance of craft research in informing conservation practice in the shaping of a relevant and sustainable management regime for historic gardens.
The particular contribution of this research is the deep investigation of the variants and invariants of management methods of historic gardens with focus on the structur- al elements of lawns and hedges. The aim is to disclose the historical and contempo- rary management regimes to which the management methods subsume. The tempo- ral focus of my research is the eighteenth-century management regime, with Gunnebo House as a case study and laboratory. The main interest concerns the work-intense fine lawns and hedges in the garden surrounding the villa. One objective is to analyze and discuss historical literature and images depicting historical management methods.
Another objective is to perform full-scale reconstructive tests, based on information in the numerous sources, to interpret and amplify the craft aspect of the historical management. The historical procedures in the management of lawns and hedges are also compared with those of contemporary garden management.
The research questions that I investigate in this research are:
1) How were these lawns and hedges managed in the eighteenth century?
2) What kind of craftsmanship and skills were required for the management methods used in the eighteenth century?
3) Is it possible to identify and delimit the regimes that lawn and hedge management at Gunnebo House were under from the eighteenth century until today?
4) What arguments are there for using historical management methods today?
The research questions ask not only how did they do it back then? according to the sourc- es but also how shall we do the work now? based on the results of the experiments with historical management methods. I, the researcher, stand in the eighteenth-century garden today with these dilemmas.
1.4 Focus and delimitations
This research has a focus on eighteenth-century management regime in Sweden.
The sources are from a broader geographical provenance and a wider timespan than the eighteenth century, only because eighteenth-century Swedish sources regarding these matters are very scarce. My main sources, which will be further presented and
critically discussed, are as follows: Le jardin de plaisir [The Pleasure Garden] from 1651 by gardener André Mollet (ca. 1600–1665); La théorie et la pratique du jardinage [The Theory and Practice of Gardening] from 1709 by Antoine Joseph Dézallier d’Argenville (1680–1765); Every Man His Own Gardener from 1767 and The Complete Kitchen Gar- dener from 1789 by gardener John Abercrombie (1726–1806); Den swenske lust– örte–
och trä–gården [The Swedish Pleasure Garden, Herbal Garden, Tree Nursery] from 1722 by gardener Johann Ahlich (ca. 1680–1743); Then rätta swenska trägårds–praxis [The Correct Swedish Gardening Practice] from 1754 by gardener Peter Lundberg (1711 or 1713–1787); and Handbok i trädgårds–skötseln [Handbook in Gardening]from 1833 by gardener Anders Lundström (1781–1865).
What do I mean when I say the eighteenth century? With regard to the main sources I use, my eighteenth century starts with Mollet in 1651 and ends with Lundström in 1833. In regard to the practice at Gunnebo House, the time period in focus is 1780–
1810. Consequently, when I use the term eighteenth century regarding Gunnebo House, it is this time period of 1780–1810 which is intended.
In this research, two structural elements of the pleasure garden at Gunnebo House are included, namely the lawns and the hedges. One could question why these garden elements were chosen and not the trees or flower borders, the landscape gardens or the kitchen gardens, or the exotic plants of the orangery? All these options are realistic at Gunnebo House since these elements are all present. In both the sources from the eighteenth century and in previous research there is information on trees and flow- er borders in gardens (Ahlich 1744; Lundberg 1754; Bengtsson 2005), on landscape gardens (Piper 1811–12/2004; Olausson 1993), or on kitchen gardens (Ahlich 1744;
Lundberg 1754; Ahrland 2005). Likewise, the orangery and its plants are thorough- ly described in the sources from Mollet and onwards (1651).2 However, descriptions about lawns and hedges are very rare in the Swedish sources as well as in the previous research.
The main sources of information in my research about eighteenth-century manage- ment regimes for lawns and hedges are gardening literature from the seventeenth to the nineteenth century. The broad field of the study, covering lawns and different types of hedges, has naturally limited the depth of research on every single element.
The initial intention was to use sources from Sweden and from the eighteenth cen- tury. However, since very few sources fulfilling those criteria were found, the criteria had to be changed. The new criteria was sources from Sweden, dating from 1650 until 1860, or international sources from the same period.
This chapter has provided a background and introduction to the present research with presentation of historical gardens as cultural heritage and the research field. Two gaps within previous research concerning management and specifically heritage gardening have been described and the purpose and research questions for the present investiga- tion have been stated. Moreover, the focus and delimitations for the present research have been provided. From this introduction I will now move on to present the re- search design of my research.
Chapter 2. Research design
This chapter presents the research design for my research, starting with my theo- retical perspectives and followed by a section describing the research methodology.
The hermeneutic approach with source pluralism and source criticism is presented as well as the text and image sources used for my research. The hermeneutic ap- proach is followed by a description of my experimental approach. Documentation methods for my craft research are presented and the chapter ends with a description of the researcher and practitioner in my study.
2.1 Perspectives
2.1.1 A historical case study
In this craft research, Gunnebo House is a laboratory for my research practice. Re- garding the interpretation of historical sources and research data, Gunnebo House is also a case study for triangulation and generalization. The case study methodology is comprehensive in qualitative research, and has been authorized by epistemolog- ical research and widely applied in different scholarly fields (Yin 2014; Johansson 2007, 2013). The case study methodology is also common in conservation motivated by the discipline’s connectedness with practice (Martins Holmberg 2006; Almevik 2012; Fredholm 2017; Westerlund 2017). It is vital within case study methodology to study the phenomenon or unit of analysis in its natural context. Researcher in landscape architecture Rolf Johansson states that one major question regarding case studies is whether and how the studies can be generalized (Johansson 2007, p. 11).
Moreover, triangulation is a core concept in case study methodology. The research- er in experimental psychology Robert Yin presents different approaches of triangu- lation, and I have applied two of those in my research: methodological triangulation
and the data triangulation (Johansson 2007, p. 1; Yin 2014, p. 120). In my case, data triangulation has consisted in the comparison of different sources like images, texts, and artefacts, and methodological triangulation has taken place between the archival studies of texts and images, the analysis of garden tools and garden elements, and the self–observation and participatory observation in the process of making.
2.1.2 Management regime
I use the term management regime in an extended way in relation to the common definition within garden and nature conservation, incorporating the discourse of the management as well as the management methods themselves. When I speak of management in a practical sense, I use the term management methods, not manage- ment regime. Management methods are practical operations that are performed in the garden. A management regime, on the other hand, is the discursive construction of management. I investigate whether there is a management regime at Gunnebo House in the late eighteenth century and I compare this management regime to the contemporary management regime at Gunnebo House and discuss the challenges.
As stated in the introduction of the thesis, the concept of management regime is here defined as the interwoven situation of factors that affect the management of a gar- den or a structural element of the garden during a specific time period. The manage- ment regime is the discursive context for management.
The concept of management regime, different from my definition, is usually used in relation to parks and gardens with the implication that all management activities are applied to a garden or a nature element (Aronson et al. 2017). This is a quantitative and instrumental comprehension of the regime concept and is not in line with my own definition which expands the question of what is done and also asks how the man- agement is done and why. The core of my use of the concept of management regime is the discursive investigation into what steers the management of a garden. One early example of the use of the concept of maintenance regime in relation to gardens was in the already mentioned book Heritage Gardens by Goulty (1993). Goulty uses the concept as defined by Aronson. Regime is a very old term that concerns rule and exercise of power according to the Swedish Academy Dictionary [Svenska Akademins ordbok], henceforth referred to with the abbreviation SAOB (SAOB 1957). Research in various fields has used the concept of regime to elicit power relations and struc- tures (Mossberger & Stoker 2001; Persson et al. 2014). In Sweden, the concept of skötselregimer (management regime) is used in relation to management operations in nature conservation and forestry (Magnusson 2010; Hedin 2012; Ulvcrona et al.
2015; Larsson 2017). The general use and definition of this concept is in line with the definition connected to Aronson et al. above (Aronson et al. 2017).
In connection to historical studies, my concept of management regime has some similarity with the concept of period eye used by art historian Michael Baxandall (1933–2008) (Ahlund 2011, pp. 22–26). Period eye is a concept that is used to in- vestigate how artists and their artwork interacted with their cultural context and explores the visual culture of a specific historical period. However, my definition of management regime is not focused on visual culture alone. Anthropologist Chiara De Cesari connects the regime concept to heritage and presents two aspects of heri-
