Off to boarding school I go

I started the garden school, with butterflies in my stomach, not knowing a single one. We came from all over. From Stockholm, but also surroundings towns from a larger area. We were different ages. Most of us around 15-16 years old, but some in their 20s too. We came from all different kind of backgrounds.

A school that started in 1911, as a place in the countryside where youth could learn the importance of home economics like childcare, sewing and cooking for the girls, and for boys the concentration was on academics and farming & forestry. It became a horticulture school in 1971.

We lived in the old houses made into student housing, and we were both boys and girls in the same house, and there were only one adult teacher on duty at night for the whole school to keep us in order! We had a shared kitchen in our house, but could eat breakfast, lunch and dinner served in a dining room at the school. We learned to respect each other, we learned to share and cooperate. We slowly matured, living away from our parents. These are the two years that I think shaped me into the person I am today.

We studied all kind of plants. Garden flowers, forest trees, fruit trees, greenhouse technology and mechanics, we got to take a drivers license for tractors, we drove all kinds of machines for the fields, and planted and harvested vegetables. We pruned trees and built stone walls, learned latin & common names. I did my internship at a local commercial garden, working the greenhouses filled of Chrysanthemums. I thought for the longest time this would be my field of interest, but choose to go into landscaping instead. After graduating I worked as a garden worker for a year or two until I got my big break. And it happened at the hairdresser!