We met author, lawyer and gardener Malene Lei Raben in her dreamy garden in Copenhagen in Denmark. Tucked away yet central, her two-storey brick house sits on a quiet street in Copenhagen that stands out for its historic cluster of 19th-century houses.
Malene welcomes us into her garden on a warm summer's day. Separated from the street by a thick hawthorn hedge, opening the wooden gate feels like entering another world. We're greeted by a microcosm of nature: cherry and apple trees are scattered among perennial flower beds brimming with an abundance of plants in every imaginable colour.
A kitchen garden offers all kinds of edible treats: potatoes, cabbages, onions, courgettes and raspberries are just a few of them. A small copse and a miniature wildflower meadow are tamed by well-kept evergreens and box hedges, with a gravel path winding through the middle.
Malene shows us a wide variety of flowers and explains how some of the colours come about through cross-pollination, thanks to a robust bee population. Besides the bees, the garden is also home to plenty of insects, birds and even bats. The bats are new arrivals, and Malene enthusiastically describes how each species contributes to the overall health of the garden. Apart from the invasive slugs that paid a visit the night before, as she tells us indignantly.
It's hard to imagine that this passionate gardener hasn't always been so connected with nature. But Malene insists that before moving into Villa Albion twenty years ago, she didn't have much of a green thumb. Her journey to becoming a havemenneske – a "garden person" – has evolved over the course of her life.
Malene's CV includes an impressive series of high-profile positions, from lawyer to managing director at several major media companies, and she also became known as a television writer and freelance columnist. "I specialised in making the work of creative people easier," she explains. "But I also wanted to be creative myself."
In 2017, Malene took the big step of leaving her secure corporate job to pursue her dream of becoming a full-time author. "I was so tired of my corporate career. When you pluck up the courage to give up a full-time job, you say goodbye to status and security and face uncertainty. It's like being a child again, just learning to walk."
"At first I started with a more fictional novel," says Malene. "But that ended up in the bin and I started again. It's really hard to write when you want to create something authentic and sincere that's also good. You have to stay true to yourself. You have to free yourself from shame and self-criticism. The whole world can criticise you – but you shouldn't do it yourself. You have to believe that your voice has value."
After the successful publication of her first book, Malene began work on her second novel. But then Covid came along and, as she so aptly puts it: "Everyone went outside into nature. The garden became even more important. Here I could feel safe and alive. Here I could forget that I was in the middle of a global pandemic. I just couldn't understand why that was so fascinating. So I started looking for an explanation."
Malene's latest book is a new take on gardening. Rather than approaching the subject technically, she decided to write a gardening book that reads like a novel. Malene explores the historical development and cultural significance of the relationship between people and their gardens, and observes how our relationship with nature has changed over the years.
Gardens are something in between the city and wild nature. In the past, gardens were used for protection against wild animals and enemies, but today they offer people a refuge from the modern world – from noise and the city – and a way to protect wildlife. Today we're alienated from nature. But in the garden, we immerse ourselves in nature and discover that we humans are part of it.
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Malene, thank you so much for these fascinating insights into your green garden oasis!
