Colorful 'Tradgards Festen' blossoms today through Sunday in Helsingborg, Sweden

Sofiero Palace and Gardens in Helsingborg, Sweden, opens its gates for a three-day festival. Vendors set up late Thursday.

Dahlias the size of dinner plates are wet with morning dew at Sofiero.

Stunning Sofiero Palace and Gardens -- Europe's most beautiful park -- invites people in for a weekend festival

STORY By CHRISTENE MEYERS
PHOTOS By BRUCE KELLER

A clump of climbing roses forms a Valentine heart at 'Europe's most
beautiful park' a title earned by the palace and grounds in 2010.

WHEN KING Gustav VI Adolf planted his first rhododendren in 1907, he had no idea how his handiwork and love of gardening would blossom.
This weekend's huge festival invites the public to Sofiero Palace and Gardens, one of Sweden's most popular attractions.  On the grounds that host world class entertainers such as Sting, thousands of Swedes plus Danes from across the Sound are enjoying the palace's annual Garden Festival, a treat for the senses. Jazz musicians were setting up Thursday evening, along with gardeners, artists, craftsmen and caterers from across Sweden.
THE PUBLIC is flocking to buy bulbs and cuttings, potted plants and bouquets while lunching on their own goodies or sampling dozens of ethnic food vendors' specialties.

Lovely Helsingborg is just across the sound from Denmark.

King Gustav Adolf who
 died in 1973, photographed
at Sofiero Palace.

After Thursday's rains subsided, dozens of vendors
began setting up a festival at Sofiero Palace.

SOFIERO was one of the Swedish royal families country mansions, bought from a farmer in 1864 by Crown Prince Oscar of Sweden. The royals enjoyed it as a get-away -- and created a feeling of countryside within the grounds, right in the center of Helsingborg. While it was beloved by several of Oscar's descendants, the royal who made it famous and beloved by the public was Oscar's grandson, future King Gustav VI Adolf, who with his wife Crown Princess Margaret turned it into a spectacular park and garden, planting over 400 varieties of rhododendron and designing spectacular gardens along a picturesque stream leading to an outdoor nook where they took afternoon tea.

Rhododendrons flower over a magnificent ravine and frame
the Sofiero Palace Gardens, where organic produce is grown.
 

WHEN MARGARET died and Gustav eventually remarried Lady Louise Moutbatten, it became their official summer residence.  They began the tradition of "open houses," one of which is unfolding now through Sunday in form of a famous festival. (The city of Helsingborg has operated the castle and grounds since Gustav's death in 1973 when he willed it to the city for public enjoyment.)
IT TRULY is a wonderland, a riot of color and floral abundance.  Dahlias the size of dinner plates stand upright with help of wooden stakes cleverly driven into the ground beneath the foliage. Hundreds of multi-colored fuchsia hang their heads in elegant excess.
Roses climb up trellises and clump in fetching shapes -- several reminding of Valentine hearts.

Bulbs for sale at Sofiero Palace in Sweden catch Cookie's eye.

On our Thursday visit, we enjoyed bee blossom, wild carrot, poppies still abloom in almost September, and displays of every kind of bulb and tuber, adding to the draw of this southern
Sweden outdoor event.
THIS GRAND weekend festival of flowers in Helsingborg, Sweden, is testimony that 150 years of tradition and love of gardening can bridge the gap between classes, continents and generations.
For more: www.sofiero.se

Mystic View Cabins invite you to
travel from a Scandinavian garden fest
to the wonders of  rural Montana. 

COMING SOON: Mystic View Cabins in rural Montana, USA, offer another kind of splendor, thousands of miles from Scandinavia.  Our time travelers zip back and forth across the oceans, to sample the good life -- today in Sweden, and soon, in the Beartooth Mountains of Montana, where cabins near Fishtail offer solitude, natural wonders and a place to recharge and rejuvenate.  Remember to explore, learn and live and catch us Wednesdays and weekends at: www.whereiscookie.com