The winters are long in southern Sweden, so when homeowner Maria Dremo Sundström decided five years ago to undertake a “total remake” of her garden, her goal was to create a landscape that would look as beautiful covered in snow as in springtime.
Photography by Maria Dremo Sundström via Almbacken.
The result is one of the loveliest winter gardens we’ve seen, with strong shapes delineated under a coating of snow and colors heightened by a glaze of ice.
After moving into the circa-1973 house in 2002, Maria and her husband remodeled the interior, undertaking a “total renovation.” At that time, the garden consisted of: “two large willows, a cherry tree, a magnolia, and a big lawn,” she says.
The garden today has a layered look in winter: evergreen hedges and boxwood balls create structure and focal points around the perimeter of the garden.
The first area Maria worked on was the garden’s long and narrow entrance on the north side of the house, where today a low-growing evergreen Bamboo ‘Bimbo’ (at Center) is a low-maintenance, compact shrub. Visible in the background is storage for bikes and dustbins.
A wooden deck that runs alongside the house’s facade creates an indoor-outdoor connection to the garden.
At the edge of the deck, a green boxwood globe stands sentinel, its shape echoed in the background by the round shapes of burnt-orange spirea shrubs.
A brick path runs from the entryway to the house.
We started by planting the hedges of thuja, beech, and box,” says Maria.
Stalwart flowers cling to the hydrangea shrubs in winter.
Visible in a back corner of the garden, the children’s trampoline will soon be replaced by a greenhouse.
Miscanthus sinensis ‘Malepartus’ stands tall in the face of winter storms.
“Now you’re well tired of this view, but that is what I see when I sit on the couch in the morning and get the urge to photograph,” says Maria.