Sustainable Cultivation within the POM Program

In Gamla Linköping, extensive work is being carried out in our historic gardens. In the gardens in the old town district, we show how gardens have developed over the last 200 years. There are several kinds of garden, from simple domestic ones, with cultivation meeting household needs, to fine representative gardens owned by the middle and upper classes. There is also an allotment garden, a herb garden and an sensory garden with a focus on accessibility.

The gardens are always open to the public and there are also guided tours with different themes. A flower and vegetable market and other events are arranged during the summer months.

Since the mid-2000s Gamla Linköping has contributed to the national gene bank and we are involved in clone archive work that is carried out in Swedish open-air museums to save our living collections (plants and animals). Over the next few years, Gamla Linköping will propagate a range of old cultural plants from Östergötland – roses, perennials, bulbs, houseplants and kitchen plants – and thus act as a local clone archive for plants collected through "Programmet för Odlad Mångfald" (abbrev. POM), i.e. the Swedish Program for Diversity of Cultivated Plants.

The work carried out within POM requires a little more effort than the work with our other plants in the museum. For example, we need to think about planting placement and we have to remove rose hips and seed stands to avoid spreading and cross fertilization. The documentation process is also quite extensive.

Despite this, there are many advantages to being part of a project like POM. We can access traditional plants that complement the museum settings, whose history we convey. We can contribute to new knowledge and guide people in the care and use of the plants. This has created an increased interest in older cultivated plants and demand for seeds has grown.

There are, however, other areas where we face challenges. One thing which has been much discussed, and where we have not come to a satisfactory solution, is the signage. We have considered various proposals for signs, including the use of QR codes, but we are not there yet. Many plants are still not labelled, there is a risk that additional signs could lead to the rarer plants being dug up, which would, of course, be very unfortunate. We are an open museum with no secure boundaries, so theft and vandalism is always a potential danger.