Special english language post -revealing some of my blog's essence

According to a comment sent for the last of my posts -thanks Plaksey-family!- i sense that there are some people outside Finland wanting to know what this blog is all about, but who cannot understand finnish. I'm sorry that my blog is only in finnish! :( The translation of this blog was at some point in my mind to start an english version sideblog, but i notised that it required too much work & time. For example the language translation programs doesn't work here well enough, because the subjects that i write about have too many special words (plant names and so on).

At least there's a lot of pictures to enjoy, but i can now tell to you all in english a little what kinds of things i have been posting so far. Maybe someday the english version might appear...

So, I'm a student of landscape architecture and i have allmost finished my studies. Before these studies i worked as a gardener too. One of my passions are plants; it have been the case even since i was a little child. I like to explore plants in many ways and especially to study how they change their appearance during seasons. Timing of the certain growing stages (blooming time, fall colours etc.) are important in this. This way i can explore plants in an artistic way too and maybe find some interesting new ways to use them in the process. I feel that this side of plants isn't explored well enough here in Finland and it needs to be corrected. The use of plants in different green areas needs to be bolder and more variable.

One important feature in this blog is to tell a story about my project of making my own arboretum. I have rent 2,5 hectars of land in the year of 1998 near Helsinki for that purpose. My little plant nursery is located elsewhere, but that place is secret as well. For this project i have grown every plant by myself from seed (i collect them myself and i also have bought them from different seed selling firms) and the project have been going on for several years now. In here i show many different tasks that needs to be done in order to make the project flow foward. I also show some of the history of this project in the article series "About history of the arboretum project" -"Arboretumprojektin historiaa" in finnish. In the future (many many years ahead..) my arboretum could serve as an object of interest for tourists, as a seed bank etc. Main focus in creating this arboretum is to try interesting compositions with different plant material in an artistic way and not focus on the taxonomy or geography related planting. Local condition on the site are restricting though.

I also tell about plants in general from many angles and showcase mostly those plants that are rare in Finland and those which have beautiful appearance of my liking. Last autumn / fall for example the main subject was to show different types of fall colours in the article series "Fall colours in the fall of 2005" -"Ruskaa syksyllä 2005" in finnish. I like to point out some not so hardy plants as well, which needs to be tested here because of the increasing of the greenhouse effect. For these purposes amongst others i had last year an article series "Plant of the week" -In finnish "Viikon kasvi"- which have been in the rerun recently to raise ideas for the coming summer. My job here is to show how much variety there is to grow and use plants here in (southern) Finland despite the climate. This year there will be a new series of "Plant of the week" when growing season starts at the end of april.

Furthermore other article series include travelstories (recently about Madeira) concerning plants of course and at the end of every week i show the happened weather details during that week in the area i live (in southern Finland just beside Helsinki -the capital city of Finland) and where these activities of mine takes place. Article series is "Weather of the week" -"Viikon sää" in finnish. These weather reports include also a weather forecasts of my own for the coming week in the area. That is based on my knowlage about meteorology and on the various weather data found for example here. The lower picture in those series reveals always some soil /ground condition happened during the week. The middle picture is surveillance scenery to show certain essence of the landscape conditions during the week and top picture shows the sky; what kind of clouds there were during the week.

I like to tell and show many other kinds of nature and landscape architecture related things as well. For example now the melting of snow is one of the interesting features here in Finland. For this i started article series "Snow and ice conditions during the spring of 2006" -"Lumi- ja jäätilanteita keväällä 2006" in finnish. In there i tell some scientific facts and show how beautiful and artistic snowcover can be even in unexpected places like beside roads & streets with dirt and sand; in Finland sand is used during winter in roads (especially in small roads, in pavements and in courtyards) to prevent slipperyness caused by ice and snow.

This year spring seems to be starting very slowly here in Finland... Last autumn /fall was very mild on the other hand... The weather plays of course a very important role here. That affects plants and how the growing season proceeds sometimes in a big way. In Finland weather varies greatly from year to year; there's even a saying in Finland that "winters are no brothers" -meaning that every winter can be very different from each other. This is one reason i'm very interested about meteorology as well. My favourite weather is severe thunderstorm :)

I hope that this was at least a little revealing, but unfortunately for now you have to settle for pictures alone. I believe that they tell a story rather well after all and i also continue to have many links to english language sites too. By the way, the other name of my blog "Idealistin mielimaisemia" means "Mindscapes Of An Idealist".