IIn this part I am going to show you how Annikki used her artistic skill in creating gardens.
KodinnKuvalejti Cover - May 2005This is the cover of a Finnish magazine which covered the design of the garden she created for her invalid mother who could enjoy it by just sitting at her kitchen window.
But more about this later, as I will go sequentially through the gardens she created over the last 53 years.
I have over a 1000 photographs that display her talent. I will limit myself to key features about each garden that display her artistic talent.
In England, after we got married, we had a small garden in the front and back of the house. Annikki was busy looking after our two babies that she did not give time to looking after the garden.
I would occasionally mow the lawn because that was required by the owners of the property. Gardening was not my hobby.
When we moved to a small house on the outskirts of Madras, in India, the property had just been constructed. The ground around the house was in a mess.
There were a couple of shady trees including an amazing mango tree which yielded mangoes as sweet as alphonso, round as a Romani and each weighing a kilo!
Annikki got to work putting down green grass. She chose one called “blue grass” as it was one which did not need mowing and it was very spongy so the children could play on it without getting hurt.
While all the others in Madras were sitting in the shade in the afternoon sun, Annikki was busy laying down the grass as she wanted to have the garden as she wanted it. With a few potted plants, the garden was soon a spate of colours
In the back garden she planted a couple of banana plants and grew a few vegetables, but she really had no interest in that.
Her life was always about colour and beauty.
We did not live here for long and then moved to a villa with a large property. She did not work on the garden except for the immediate vicinity of the house,
She did get the children tidy up the garden but soon decided it was not too wise as there plenty of snakes, especially cobras in the garden. Also, when little Joanna started carrying stones around, Annikki found some of the stones had scorpions under them.
If Annikki saw a snake she would call the nearby snake park who would come and catch them to take them to the park as they extracted the venom to prepare the antidote.
When we moved to Bangalore we did not have a garden in any of the houses we lived in, so gardening was not on Annikki’s agenda.
When we moved to Finland, the garden at the Oulu, Kampitie house belonging to her parents consisted of plenty of gooseberry bushes in no specific fashion, divided between both gardens of the semi-detached house.
Annikki’s father had an area where he cleaned his fish and smoked it. Also much of the area was for keeping the wood he collected from the rubbish dump to heat the house, There were a few garden chairs, a hammock and a chair swing, but it was not a very inviting garden and it was rarely used.
After Annikki’s father died in 2001, the onus of looking after her mother, the house and the garden fell on Annikki.
She cleared out the overgrown bushes. As soon as this was done, the neighbour suggested that a dividing fence should be put up. Being a handyman, he did it quickly and I helped him paint it.
After this, Annikki found a couple of large boulders just under the kitchen window which was protruding from under the ground. She called a service which took them out. Annikki asked them to put it next to the house in a corner. She then excavated the ground near the house and by putting a plastic layer she created a beautiful pond. There she introduced fish.
She then terraced the land as it was on two levels and threw away a lot of rubbish that her father had collected.
When that was done she found an old heavy cast iron bathtub had been left behind. She did not panic. She dug a hole in the ground. She then asked me to call my strong muscular friend from Zambia, Kamu, to move the bathtub.
While I was away, Annikki using her Finnish sisu, managed to move the bathtub near the hole and it dropped beautifully in place. It fitted exactly.
Around the bathtub she planned a sandy area with some wooden platforms to put some chairs.
She then took all the waste wood strips her father had collected and built a bridge.
While she looked after her mother, she worked relentlessly, hammering away till 10 pm, and then working well into the night without a sound.
At the bottom of the garden she set up a trestle fence and an old wooden door she put it in the middle. Taking a cue from me, she put a green fabric over the door so I could sing the old favourite song “Green Door”! I never revealed the “secret” behind the Green Door to my pestering children! :-)
As per her specifications I built a shed over the bathtub. Some Thai friends, Unnop and Pailin, of ours made the end pieces making it a Thai flavour.
Annikki crafted everything so beautifully to suit all ages, and especially her mother who could sit at the kitchen table and overlook the whole garden the whole day.
It is impossible to describe the many tens of designs she included in the garden, so I will show you around the garden through pictures and you can see how her artistic mind worked on every detail.
They did an article about Annikki and her garden which I give below.
Annikki’s garden was not just for summer. She spent the winter making use of snow as a medium of art. The garden a lot of fun for her grandchildren, she even made the first moving ssnowman.
Annikki’s mother passed away in 2008 and by December we moved house to our daughter’s home nearby on Vesaisentie. There was just a bare garden.
But this was short lived and we moved house to Sarkkatie with a large garden which was bare.
Annikki got to work and soon created yet another beautiful summer and winter garden.
Annikki relaxing with a pulla and coffee - a rare sight!
Annikki working in her Sarkkatie garden! Always relaxed!!
Snow volcano creation by Annikki.
Snow moon rising in Sarkkatie, a creation by Annikki.
Till the winter of 2019 Annikki was still doing the snow work, even as the first stages of dementia set in.
Many consider that Annikki walks in my shadow because I am loud and outspoken. This is positively false.
In the first three parts of this series I have shown that I cannot even live in her shadow.
Finally our health problems caught up with us. We had to move to an apartment. Our gardening days are over.
In the next part of this series I am going to show you yet another facet of Annikki’s art.
I miss all the gardens that Annikki created. Luckily, I have photographed much of her handiwork, as shown above. It has been my pleasure to share this with you.
Maybe there will be a chance that I can compile a comprehensive book about this subject as every picture has its OWN interesting story..
