Kumla Town Park

Welcome to the Lake Park Greenhouse and gardens! You have now come to a part of the City Park where we have created an oasis and a beautiful garden for you. The greenhouse, gardens and the city park have been created as a place for everyone, a meeting place for recreation and inspiration in our beautiful Kumla.

But let us start at the beginning by telling you a bit about the history of this place. As Kumla was growing and the need for housing was increased we began to look at the area southeast of the city center. Geological surveys were done before this expansion and then it was discovered that the place where we are standing only simply consisted of thick blue clay and as a result it was clearly unsuitable for building housing. Instead a decision was taken to enlarge Kumla City Park and the idea of a greenhouse and gardens took form. In order to build the greenhouse we had to drive piles to prevent the building from settlement.

Kumla Real-Estate Inc commissioned the building, which means that the city of Kumla rents the greenhouse and the city park from said company. City architect Per Flodström did the drawings for the greenhouse and Hans Nilsson was the project manager. Construction was started during the winter of 2011. In April, two years later, the house was finished and activities in the house could be started. The official inauguration of the City Park Greenhouse took place in the fall of 2013.

The building is 1600 square meters large and is built on classic 18th-century models of an orangery with slanted glass sections facing south and stone walls facing north. The building consists of a steel structure, about 1000 square meters of glass as well as black wooden panels and bricks. The building is heated with geothermal energy, sun panels and wood heating.

Today there are three different activities in the greenhouse. The park division, the labor and integration unit, as well as Good Rooms are all found under the same roof and work closely. Good Rooms is a privately owned restaurant where you can have lunch, order á la carte or just have a coffee. They also offer the possibility of booking the restaurant for parties, weddings and conferences. The ice-cream stall here in the lobby is rented by Good Rooms from the culture and recreation department. In the summertime you can buy ice-cream and also some home furnishings and a few of the pots that you can see here in the greenhouse.

The park unit in Kumla is responsible for the gardens south of the greenhouse as well as the orangery with the Palm, the Citrus and the Camellia Rooms. The Kumla Labor and Integration unit, also called AMI, offers rehabilitation training for persons who for one reason or another are far removed from work life. AMI is responsible for the Greenhouse of Possibilities, where participants sow and cultivate the plants that later are planted in the different gardens. By the gate of the Garden of Possibilities you can get more information about their work aiming at making both people and plants grow.

The basic structure of the garden is built upon the four elements: earth, fire, air and water. If you scan the QR code at each place you can get more information about this. You can also visit the herbal garden, the children's garden and the rose garden. Be curious and check what you can discover behind the next corner, tree or bush! We hope that you can find something to enjoy regardless of the season when visiting us!

The Palm Room is the heart of the greenhouse with an impressive ceiling height of 11 meters. Here you can sit down at the café tables under the large leaves of the palms with a good book and perhaps a cup of coffee. In the palm room there are different kinds of palms, fan, desert fan, date and Japanese Sago palm.

In this room it is not only our large palms that make you think of warmer climates. Here you can also find coffee plants, a banana tree and an avocado tree. The latter was planted as a pit in 2015 and has grown so much that it had to be donated by the present house gardener. Blood dracaena, bottle lilies, Benjamin figs, monstera and maidenhair are other plants that give character to the room. If you visit in late winter you might be seduced by the wonderful fragrance of the panicle jasmine.

In this room there are also a few works of art. Facing the Park Lake there is "Half Boy" by Anders Krisár. It is made of bronze and has a counterpart on Mount Kvarntorp in the sculpture park there.If you want to know more about the art work there is information posted by the entrance facing the park lake. If you wish for a more comprehensive picture of where the remaining artworks in the greenhouse gardens are placed you can check the illustrations at our infopoint. You can find information about all artworks in Kumla on our homepage visitkumla.se.

In the palm room decorations and flowers are changed according to season. The space by the café wall is our little display window where the display is changed now and then. Summertime there are flower bouquets from the garden and during those months when seasonal plants need to be bought they are, if possible, chosen so that they later can be planted out in the garden. It is also important to work as sustainable as possible and to utilize the resources available. That is why we work with composting on a small scale plus we have installed an irrigation plant.

Here you will find the stars that treat us to their flowering during the darkest time of the year. As a rule the camellias flower between November and February when not much else is in bloom. Camellias belong to the tea family of plants originally from Asia that came to Europe as early as the 17th century. During the 19th century it came to be a really fashionable plant strongly associated with homes of distinction.

Camellias can be experienced as a rather tricky plant, but that depends on the fact that they know what they want and do not accept anything else. They want high humidity year round, but different temperatures. In the winter they want it cool, somewhere between 8-13 plus degrees and in the summer they want it warmer, around 25 plus degrees. In the winter when the buds peek out it is important that no water ends up on buds or flowers. Camellias want to have an even moisture of the soil and do not want the soil to dry up between being watered ( if the topmost millimeters dry up a bit, it does not matter, but the pot must not be entirely dry). Camellias need to have soil that has a low pH-value to feel at home. If you want to mix in coarse gravel in the soil you can improve the drainage of the pot. Once they have finished flowering you can add special nourishment for soil with a low pH. The colors of the flowers range from whitest white,from pink and speckled to completely red and they can be simple or filled. The plant retains its leaves year round and the foliage is beautifully dark green.

Camellia is a bush and is found in nature as layers of bushes and that is why their leaves are easily burned by the sun. To protect them against the sun here there are automatic draperies that go down to cover the large glass sections. If you look up in the ceiling you will find the automatic airing hatches that regulate the temperature in the building.

Another unique plant to be found here in the Camellia Room is a plant that is carelessly called a cotton tree, but whose real name is kapok. There are cotton-like fibers in the seed cases of the tree that can be used for upholstery stuffing. The specimen that we have here in the greenhouse was planted from seed in 2010 and was donated to the greenhouse in 2021 by a Kumla couple who have cultivated this tree.

In this part of the building we have plants that make you think of the area around the Mediterranean. Impressive fig trees share the space with citrus plants such as lemon, calamondin and mandarin. During the summer the smaller trees as well as most geraniums move out to the terrasses both in front and in back of the greenhouse.

Here in the citrus room we also have our collection of geraniums. The geranium family contains a great number of species and come in many colors and shapes. Here you will find fragrant geraniums, for example citrus geraniums with variegated leaves and peppermint geraniums with velvet downy leaves. Another geranium smells of coca-cola if you touch the leaves. We even have fragrant geraniums that at first sight do not look at all like typical geraniums, eg, Lemon Tree Bontrosai. At times they are called bonsai geraniums and are easily recognized once you have learned how they look. Can you figure out where they are?

Another classic that you can find here is usually called "Doctor Westerlund´s health flower". The geranium has been named after Ernst Westerlund, a physician who recommended his patients to have a pot of rose geranium in the sickroom in order to purify the hospital air. The leaves smell freshly of rose and lemon and if you are lucky youy can catch sight of its tiny, pink flowers.

Here in the citrus room there are also velvety red love geraniums, lovely pink Mårbacka geraniums (Selma Lagerlöf´s farm) and coral tulip geraniums. If you are fond of the shape of a rose then the rosebud geranium is easy to fall in love with. Take the time to walk around and take in the geraniums with all your senses - who knows, you might find a new favorit?

The absolutely most common question for us working here is whether you may take a cutting with you home. We usually say that if each visitor were to take a small sprout with them we would have nothing left to show you. Therefore we are asking you not to take sprouts or cuttings from our collections. Instead we refer you to our spring and fall fairs that are organized here in the greenhouse annually.

Another frequent question we get is how we store our geraniums. They are here all year round, but during the winter we lower the temperature in this room to stimulate budding. At the end of the winter we cut down the geraniums and repot them. Then we also have the chance of taking cuttings. Many of the plants that are here in the greenhouse have been multiplied by cuttings.

Welcome to the garden that belongs to the labor and integration unit, also called AMI. AMI carries on a number of labor market measures, for example, practical work experience, rehabilitation in a green environment with the aim of getting the participants to grow and blossom. The measures are intended to prepare the participants for future work on the open labor market.

It is the members of AMI who cultivate from seeds the summer flowers that we can see in our gardens. The plants grown in the garden of possibilities are planted in the gardens when the risk for frost is over and the plants have been properly hardy, ie, when the plants have grown accustomed to being outside.

Much of the activities depend on the participants sowing, replanting and planting the plants in the garden. In other words it is thanks to AMI that we have anything to plant in the gardens!

During the season the participants manage the daily maintenance of the garden of possibilities. In addition to summer flowers and perennials, there are also berry bushes and fruit trees, such as raspberries, gooseberries, currents, strawberries, elderberries, sea buckthorns and rhubarbs, and against the fence there are trained apple trees. And somewhere in the garden there is a peach tree. Can you find it?

Depending on the season there is a small selection available of plants or crops ready to be harvested to buy in this garden. More locally grown than that is not possible. And when the season comes to an end the participants collect seeds to sow next year.

Dare leave the gravel path to enter one of the paths to take a closer look at what is growing in the raised beds. Or walk up to the giant spade that looms large in the garden of possibilities. The art work is called "Dig where you Stand" and was created by an artist named Gunnar Karl Nilsson.

This is the center for the activities organized for children with focus on playful learning about cultivation, the cycle of seasons etc. During the summer vacation we also have special summer activities and in August we usually organize a harvest home when the children can taste whatever the garden may offer.

The children's greenhouse is not winterized and as a consequence it is only used for storing pots and as protection against rain and wind in the wintertime. In the spring some of all that has been planted from seed ends up here before planted out in the gardens. A little later closer to summer these pots leave room for more exciting things. In the summertime there is always something for big and small to discover. Sometimes tomatoes of different colors and shapes are grown here and sometimes we show what oats, wheat, barley and rye look like.

Among the tufts of glansmiskantus there is a little path that leads to the children's garden. Both big and small feet are welcome to discover, taste and enjoy. Behind the little greenhouse there is a secluded place in the shade where you can rest or drink something while the children are playing. When spring comes and the apple trees are in bloom it is easy to remain seated here to see and listen to how eagerly the bees and other pollinators work. Perhaps someone has moved into the insect hotel placed on the trunk of one of the apple trees? Dare to peek in to see if you can find a little insect.

If you do not feel like resting at all and your legs need to run around? Sometimes we have activities in the children's garden , for example pentathlon. Perhaps you want to challenge a friend? Or do you want to challenge the retired breakdancer "*Mr Clay Man" from the Urals?The square filled with sand can be used for drawing but also as a dance stage.

Have you seen the little house where Smulle and Blålle live?
Smulle is a troll that loves wild strawberries and therefore has gotten himself a wild strawberry hat, but he has also been busy planting wild strawberries all around the garden. Smulle has his own mountain of wild strawberries, for instance, it is called Smulle mountain. When it is the season there are lots of sun-ripened wild strawberries. Pick and enjoy!

Blålle is a duck that loves blueberries, which you can see on his hat. Since Blålle only loves blueberries he has naturally planted American blueberries so that his Saturday sweets are all taken care of. If the blueberries are ripe you just have to taste a few! They are yummy!

If you feel like growing American blueberries at home it is important that you grow them in soil with a lower pH-value than regular planting soil, such as rhododendron soil. Plant several plants that pollinate each other. Here in the garden we have two kinds named Nothblue and Oscar. The bushes do not only offer us delicious berries but the foliage also gives us blazing fall colors that can embellish any garden before they finally fall off and go to rest for the winter.

The garden is organized around ”The four elements”: water, fire, air and earth, which are intended to symbolize Kumla´s nature and culture. Here you will find out more about the element water.

Water is intended to symbolize Kumla´s rivers, water-filled quarries and artificial lakes, like the Park Lake right outside. The plantations here are done as wave formations and naturally the plants come in different shades of blue and purple. At a distance patches of white plants can be spotted. They are intended to symbolize the scum on the waves created when a storm is brewing out at sea. It does man good to be surrounded by water in one way or another. Around Kumla there are few natural lakes or water courses, so the artificial lakes in our city park are much appreciated.

Water is vital to all living organisms – without water there is no life! Water is also one of our dearest resources, since it is limited. In the greenhouse gardens we water with water from the lake that is situated north of the greenhouse. That means that we do not use the limited resource drinking water for irrigation, but we use lake water. In 2020 we invested in an automatic irrigation plant for our display garden that was put into operation in the summer of 2021. The plant is not in use during the winter. In the fall we blow out all the water so that the pipes will not freeze. During the vegetation period the irrigation system manages on its own by irrigating at night-time when no one is here. Automatic irrigation gives slower irrigation, it saves time and especially water. To water in the daytime when the evaporation is at its highest is not very smart. Early morning or late evening is the best time for watering. Then you do not risk that the leaves of the plants become burned by the sun. For this plant we have also installed a humidity meter with sensors so that the irrigation only starts when the earth is dry and not after a downpour. The idea of an irrigation system is to increase the efficiency, that is, that the right amount of water gets to the right place at the right time. More even watering also produces finer and healthier plants. The nozzles and sprinklers of the irrigation plant are placed so that they will water all flower beds in the garden. Can you see them?

The borders of the plantations are framed by tall October monk’s-hood on the left and fragrant border catmint on the right, if you stand by the pillar apples. Pollinators love the border catmint and it will flower again during the season if you cut it down after the first flowering. The monk’s-hood named Cloudy flowers from September to October, which means that it blooms at best when most other plants have given up. It becomes 140 cm tall and is a very useful cut flower, but it is good to know that it is poisonous.

On the other side of the hedge of the border catmint there is the rose garden. This garden is a place for fragrance and enjoyment. A number of different kinds of roses such as Austin Roses and Portland roses are joined by the three-leafed spiraea and a clematis named Blue Angel.

This garden is built around the theme of the four elements, water, fire, air, and earth and is intended to symbolize Kumla’s nature and culture. Here is some more information about air.

The idea behind the element of air is that it should symbolize Kumla and the wide open spaces, the tastes and the smells of the plains of Närke. Air ties on to the open valley, the open spaces of the city park and the horizon. The configuration of this element is built on the use of plants that have an airy way of growing so that they can sway in the wind and/or plants of light pastel colors alternatively saturated colors of purple and pink.

Did you notice the small clouds of reinforcement rods? The bows should symbolize clouds where pink-flowering clematis intertwines in the summertime. Here you have a possibility of walking AMONG pink little clouds. As a visitor we do not wish you to literally walk on our little clouds.

Other plants that are evident for the element air are plants that smell good, such as our fragrant lilies that move indoors in the winter. Another plant that smells wonderful and that stays outdoors all year round is the snowball tree. If you visit in the spring you must check whether they are in bloom. They have white/pink flowers and have a divine smell if you dare go near them. You will find them in the right-hand corner near the artwork called Angel. Next to the fragrant snowball tree you can find the cherry spindle tree which is fantastically gorgeous in the fall. It is difficult not to be amazed at the spindle tree in particular: The leaves turn deep crimson and the fruits open up to show their orange seeds. The red fruits are one cm long hanging down by little stems. These remain long after the leaves have fallen to the ground and then look like little Japanese lanterns swaying in the wind.

Next to the spindle tree is the artwork Angel created by Eva Lange. We stand here before a shape, a movement, a feeling that we recognize. A new shape in a new place. Each one of us has an idea of what an angel looks like and what an angel is, anything from a guardian angel to our childhood’s angel with white wings in fairy tales. This angel has a simple and minimalistic expression, on the borderline between organic and abstract.

Something considerably more concrete is the wrought iron trellis that runs through the entire air element where a number of modern kinds of vines are growing. Since they grow outdoors we have chosen to plant different kinds of so-called Labrusca vines, which are hardy and can tolerate many degrees below zero, such as Zilga, Sukribe and Spulga. In late summer and early fall you are welcome to taste a grape or two. There are both green and blue grapes. Which one is your favorite?

The garden is built around structures and spaces that emanate from the four elements fire, water, air and earth that are intended to reflect Kumla’s nature and culture.

The element earth is supposed to symbolize Kumla’s farm landscape and the fertile plains. Out of the earth that we cultivate comes much of our food and the area here, with both fruit trellises and plantations, is intended to reflect what our wonderful earth can provide. The crops are here varied from year to year but there are perennials as well. Outside the apple trellis for instance there are beds with perennials of duller shades such as dark-leafed alum or chocolate columbine. Please observe that all perennials are not edible, since some of them have only been chosen due to their color on either stems or flowers. Lime-colored flowers offer a contrast to colors full of earth.

Along the entire gravel path you will find pillar apple trees names Dzin, Bolero, Arbat and Polka. These trees have a narrower way of growing than classic crown trees and are grafted onto a weaker stem. They become 2-3 meters tall and are not as thick as regular apple trees and are therefore excellent for a small garden or if you want apple trees but have a limited space.

Apple trees can also be pruned to obtain a particular shape and in the element earth a small trellis has been created for different kinds of apples. If you look to the left you can also see the cordon growing along the wrought-iron trellis. Here are the six kinds of apples,Trulsa, Folke, Silvia, James Grieve, Filippa and Katja, that exist as either trellis or cordon.

The kitchen garden is the tiny space located between the cordon and the hedge of border catmint divided by the gravel path leading to Good Rooms. In the kitchen garden, which is a natural part of the earth element, beauty and utility are combined. It is not unusual to find cabbage plants here together with Tagetes. Exhaustion of the earth is counterchecked by Tagetes and they come in many fine color schemes.

If you turn around now so that you have the kitchen garden in back of you then you will see the spice garden with its basilica house. In the spice garden there are many different spices. Burnet is the name of the plant that grows along the edge of courtén steel. It is an old spice that has spherical dentate leaves. The leaves can be used for salad or soup. In the basilica house you can find other leaves that can be used for cooking. During the summer you can find a number of different kinds of basilica. Walk around and smell them to see if you find a new favourite.

Manure is added each year to the earth in the garden from either cow or horse. The manure is taken from nearby farms and is mixed with the soil in the springtime. The addition of manure promotes micro life in the earth and increases the level of organic material. The garden consisted originally of compact blue clay. Since clay soil is so heavy it requires soil improvement each year. All beds are raised in order to further increase the depth of the earth plus this helps to heat the beds quicker in the spring.

The garden is constructed around the four elements fire, water, air and earth that are intended to reflect Kumla’s nature and culture.

Fire is intended to symbolize the heat and the ashes of nearby Mount Kvarntorp Fire is illustrated by the colors of the plants, the choice of plants here concentrates on fiery colors in the flower fields of yellow, red and orange. Here you will find perennial plants, such as herb bennet, red hot poker and sneezeweed. Each season we also add annual plants, such as sun flowers, orange torch and mask flower. Perhaps the sea of fire has not yet quite gone into flames when you visit, but then you must try to imagine this.

A long row of terracotta pots on pedestals provide height to plantations in this section. Something else that also lends height are the privet lilacs that have yellow white thick panicles. The flowers have a sweet honey-like fragrance. They are trees that become 4-7 meters tall, and are suitable as single trees for a small garden. All the way back in this plantation there are Virginia creepers growing also adding to the blazing colors of autumn when the creepers akin to red flames of fire climb over the wall.

The fire section borders on the little grove by a hedge of blue honeysuckle of a kind named Anja. The grove contains Goldie’s wood fern, Lady in red and ostrich fern. Can you find them? Three other plants to be found in the grove are forget-me-nots, crane’s bill and autumn anemones. If you visit us in the spring you may catch sight of both snake’s head and crown imperial.

Fire is particularly prominent in the area where the birdbaths stand. There the red shale ashes from the industrial era at Kvarntorp form the base of a refined pruned nature just like Art at the top on Mount Kvarntorp does. The wild fire meets a pruned plant life in the shape of cut cubes of yew and drops of water. Glansmiskantus grows in the ashes where the panicles are dancing like flames of fire in the wind.

If you look up onto the roof of the Lake Park greenhouse you will see a sculpture by Maria Miesenberger called Moment in Motion. The young man is ready to dare take a step into the unknown, to let go of what is familiar and safe in order to find new paths and goals. Graciously crouched with taut muscles you might expect him to soon stretch out to begin the coming adventure. The sculptor gives us possibility to consider what we wish to realize or change in our lives, but that we still have not had the courage to do.