Little in life comes to us ready-made. A scrumptious dinner doesn’t cook itself. A perfect physique doesn’t take shape while you sleep. And a beautiful garden? Well, it helps to be well fed and fit when you’re up against the willfulness of Mother Nature.
The grounds of this weekend getaway 13 miles outside of Stockholm, are a far cry from what they were when Micael Bindefeld – an in-demand event planner for 40 years – acquired the property. Anchored by a house designed in 1937 by iconic architect Ragnar Östberg (best known for Stockholm’s City Hall), with a garden measuring over 8,600 square feet, the land was in rough shape. Now, neither utterly perfect nor studiously unkempt, it reflects author Michael Pollan’s observation that “[A] garden suggests there might be a place where we can meet nature halfway.”
Today, the waterside retreat, where Bindefeld escapes with his husband, Nicklas, and their son, Simeon, is planted with fruit trees – pear, apple, plum, cherry – and graced with ornamental shrubs and literally hundreds of pink and white geraniums. The family keeps bees and chickens and grows tomatoes, all kinds of cucumbers, black currants, gooseberries, lettuce, zucchini and melons, all of which find their way to dinner every summer, served in a greenhouse at a long table with fronds dancing overhead. Ancient oak trees dot the property, and a broad lawn gives way to a knoll punctuated with moss-covered outcroppings of solid rock. Potted dahlias adorn the terrace of the main house, while Simeon’s own little domain – a miniature copy of the original summer house, right down to the chimney and tiled roof – is hugged by a rose garden.
Bindefeld has been drawn to things green since he was a child of 6, pressing plants in his herbarium and learning the Latin names of each. Growing up outside Gothenburg, he spent precious time with his grandfather, who grew vegetables and helped Bindefeld build his first greenhouse. The passion for plants – for communicating with the earth – is as strong in him as ever. “The garden is a big part of my identity,” he has shared. “I feel grounded here and have put my soul and many of my most productive years into making it the way I like it.”
Indeed, Bindefeld’s bit of Eden possesses a not-always-easy-to-achieve sense of authenticity, a beauty spun between chance and design. His labors remind one, as the poet May Sarton said, that “Gardening is an instrument of grace.”
Photography by Johan Sellèn.
Styling by Gill Renlund.
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