The Pleasure Garden

In 2006 the spotlight was on the castle island in the King’s Gardens. King Christian IV was very interested in plants, so recreating the traces of the King’s Pleasure Garden was one of the Palaces and Properties Agency’s contributions to Renaissance Year in 2006. This included marking out the northwest bastion of the castle island.

What is a pleasure garden?

Rosenborg Castle was originally built by King Christian IV as a country retreat, but by 1624 it had been extended to create the Dutch Renaissance palace that we know today. Otho Heyder’s plan of 1649, the first plan of the gardens, shows that there was “a small pleasure garden” on the castle island.

The fact that it was called a pleasure garden indicates that it was mainly planted for pleasure and probably did not have any of the elements of a kitchen garden. It was a garden that King Christian IV could take guests out into. A plan from the 1660s shows the beds of the pleasure garden, but it is not known what they were planted with.
Early Renaissance gardens did not separate ornamental and kitchen beds. That came in the late Renaissance, when there was greater emphasis on straight lines, structure and symmetry. Patterns were also created in the beds.
Hans Rasmussen Block’s “Horticultura Danica” (1647), one of the first Danish gardening books, shows various drawings of the bed shapes of the day. The book mentions the importance of repetition and symmetry in planting, with the author recommending using the same plants in the corners to create repetition.

Apart from the beds, it is known that many plants incapable of surviving in the Danish climate were used. These plants, which included laurels, myrtles and figs, were grown in tubs and kept in a special overwintering house during the cold months.

Recreating the Pleasure Garden

The aim in recreating King Christian IV’s Pleasure Garden was to mark out the bed shapes that were definitely in the garden. Gravel paths were laid out around the beds to make the whole area accessible. Six of the beds have been laid to lawn, while the western section of the garden has been planted with the plants commonly used in pleasure gardens in the time of King Christian IV.

Choice of plants

The plants were chosen on the basis of a list of plants drawn up by Otho Sperling in 1642. Otho Sperling was the Royal Botanist from 1638 to 1644 and responsible for acquiring plants for the King’s Gardens. It is therefore reasonable to assume that the plants on this list were also used in the garden.

The planting plan was put together in such a way that the central bed focuses on King Christian IV’s own colours, the yellow and red of the Oldenborgs. The colour schemes of the surrounding beds have been put together to create one bed with mainly yellow and blue flowers, one with shades ranging from pink to blue-violet, one with pink and white, and one with pink, violet and white.

Spring bulbs became very popular in the early 17th century, so the beds have been planted with a number of different bulbs to guarantee early colour. They include various crown imperials, snowdrops and historical tulips and narcissi.
Eight tubs containing special plants have been placed by Rosenborg Castle. The tubs were specially made for the Pleasure Garden and are painted in King Christian IV’s colours (red and yellow). The plants for the tubs were chosen on the basis of Sperling’s list from 1642.

Plant spacing

We know from the literature that plants were more widely spaced than is usual today. In the time of King Christian IV people wanted to see the individual plants develop and preferably the bare soil too. Bulbs and tubers were originally planted on the fringes of the beds or on their own. The names of the plants are displayed on signs in the beds.