Välkommen till Institutionen för kulturvårds högre seminarium med Eva Gustavsson, Tina Westerlund och Katarina Saltzman.
Biodiversity is under threat, both wild and domestic. In this seminar, we will present some examples of research on practices through which people care for plants in different contexts. The first example relates to new approaches and practices in conservation of wild flora, and the second one to gardeners’ care-taking activities in relation to specific garden plants, in this case, the variegated daylily Kwanso Variegata. This seminar will be in English, and is the last seminar for this spring in the series Conservation and Care.
The nature of plants is sometimes almost unfathomable. Some wild plants are so particular in their needs of care, that it is difficult to imagine in what context they have evolved and thrived (as they must have, to even be here today). Currently, around the world, attempts to save wild flora by breeding them in botanical gardens are taking place. Eva Gustavsson will introduce a project called Potted Nature. Strategies for integrated conservation of wild plant species, in which we seek to elucidate how Sweden has gone from spurning such activities to establishing formal cooperation between botanical gardens and nature conservation authorities. We are also interested in the knowledge transfer between two types of botanical professionals, as well as the conservation-knowledge development of the flora in the natural habitats.
On the other scale of diversity, there are domestic plants with rare properties, such as variegation (i.e. white patterns on the leaves). Tina Westerlund will present a study of the complex interactions between gardeners and the specific variety of daylily called Kwanso Variegata. In a book chapter called Managing Conflicting Desires in a Garden Plant: Crafting with a Variegated Daylily we have discussed questions such as: In what way is the gardener co-creating the white-striped leaves that are so typical of this plant? And in which ways are the gardener’s crafting activities simultaneously conflicting with the desires of the plant itself?
https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-981-19-4855-8_8