Gardeners Go Europe

Today I had one of those days on which you are constantly eating... I really love the food here. Robin already wrote something about the Bøfsandwich, so now I will tell you something about the other, very tasty specialities Denmark brings to the table.
Because it was our last day working at BUUS&Co, our wonderful co-worker bought us a ghost cake and after trying a lot of sweet stuff here I have to say that the denish people definitly know best how to make desserts... I mean, look at this cute cake, it tasted as sweet as it looks :)



After this (very delicious) break we continued work until the boss of our company wanted to have a short meeting at the Salling Rooftop to see us of. It is a beautiful restaurant with plants the company planted and maintains. We enjoyed the food and the view, you have an amazing sight over the whole city.
Next we had a short but very fun sightseeing tour, for example, we saw the the smallest street of Aalborg or drunk a hot Cacao in the famous merchant house “Vinhandel”... its a beautiful building with hidden rooms and mysterious corridors.



The work day ended way too soon and it was really sad to say goodbye to our colleges. Special thanks to Mia and Martin for enduring us all of the three weeks, it was a pleasure to work with you.

We completed the day with Hot dogs, followed by instant noodles, so we had the entire spectrum of the the taste of Denmark.



I will come back here for sure, not only because of the food :)

There is one thing Denmark is famous for: it's bicycles. Hardly no one doesn't have a bike. It seems like half of all danish people are riding a bike to work in the morning. In all big cities are bicycle lanes, in every street and there are special traffic regulations to prevent accidents. If you turn left or right you always have to look out for cyclists because they always can drive first. They even have special routes through the land only for bikes that are marked with blue signs with a withe bicycle and a number.
Now that we are in the land of bicycles we thought we definitely have to go on a tour. So we searched for some place we could rent a bike. The secretary of the Sportshøjskole did recommend the donkey bikes a kind of city-bike you can rent for a day or for a week. You can find them all over the city at special stations and unlock them with the 'donkey republic' app. Every bike has a special name so when we got them, our group was expanded by Peter, Miles, Bessi and Elvis.



Unfortunately only the king of Rock 'n roll had working gears so we couldn't complete our trip to Nibe (a beautiful village at the coast). But we drove around the little villages near Aalborg and made a stop by the fjord. It was a short but nevertheless a wonderful trip and we took lots of photos.

Seagulls shout, wind blows and I smell a whiff of sea.
Like this I was welcomed in Aalborg. Early in the morning after a night in the train I arrived. With a cup of coffee at the small homely caffee house I enjoyed the morning atmosphere to the full.

Back to reality we started working in a small and friendly firm called Elmerhøj. We were welcomed very warmly and started working in the grey part of the company. The firm is selected in a grey and a green part what means that they have a section with GaLaBau and care.

Together with our collegues we are constructing the outer space of a car dealership.
Last week we've placed the parking area out of sawn cement stones. We had a lot of fun cutting the stones with the angular grinder around the cores. A lot of times we drove the wheel loader which was a lot of fun.
In order to do sports in the afterwork hours we are driving with the longboards around the harbour and into the city. This makes you feel like being a part of the city because Aalborg is the most sportive city I've ever seen.
Upon the recommendations of our collegues at the weekend we've been together at the northern point of Denmark where the seas are going together. In the rain we were fascinated of the spectacle and the historical background of Skagen.

We’ve also been in Hals an old fishing village with a fantastic harbour at the sea on the east coast.
Lea

Everything has an end, just the sausage has two! (German saying)

Everything has to end and even our stay here in Denmark is nearing its ending.

I had 2 great weeks here in Denmark where I got to visit remarkable landscapes, amazing sights and beautiful towns. Because of a recommendation of one of my colleagues at Buus&Co we ate a "Bøfsandwich" on Sunday and now I know why the Danes are always so happy.

Apart from our leisure it is really nice working in Denmark, I learned new things at the company here and I learned to appreciate new tools. I am really grateful for the nice colleagues at Buus&Co who integrated us right from the start.
It is always nice to talk with them and we have really interesting working sites, one day I got to use the "HeatWeed" for weed control. The "HeatWeed" heats water to nearly boiling temperature. The hot water kills the cells inside of the plants and can destroy the roots of plants, so even plants that regrow from their root, like Taraxacum sect. ruderale, die and won't grow back. It is great way for weed control in driveways, because it is without chemicals and without open flames.



I am really looking forward to see what the last week in Denmark brings for us.
But the biggest problem is, like a colleagues always says: "Time flies by when you are having fun!" and so my time in Denmark is fleeting fast.

Hello everybody,

now, we are already 2 weeks here in Denmark and we saw so many beautiful things.



Apart from all the wonderful places, that we visited, the astonishing landscape and the good working environment, there is one thing I liked most. This one thing is meeting new wonderful people.
Our time here in Denmark is coming to an end and we have met so many nice people.
There are the other students, who are staying with me in Denmark. I didn't know all of them before, but they are friendly, kind and it was nice getting to know them.
Now we are a funny little group of young gardeners that are staying together in Denmark, visiting different cities and places and having a lot of fun together. It´s nice to hear what they are doing at work and how they like the time here. We are staying in contact with the two that are staying in Randers as well. Last weekend they visited us and yesterday we visited them at their workplace Randers Regnskov. It is such a beautiful and unique place. Also we went to Aarhus – a beautiful city. After we had done a little city trip and some shopping, we went to the botanical garden in Aarhus. The entrance is for free and a visit of the garden and its greenhouses is defentitly worth it. It was a very nice trip and we had a lot of fun.



Today we drove to Lindholn Høje, which isn´t far away from Aalborg. It is also a good place to visit and you learn a lot about the Vikings.
Tomorrow starts our last week here in Denmark. I´m looking forward to work another 4 days at OKNygaard.
Unfortunately those are my last days in this company...
We have very friendly colleagues and the work makes lots of fun. Everyone wants to know how we like the time in Denmark and what we have visited while we are here. They are also interested in our work and company in Germany. They ask us many questions and we also ask them a lot about their working processes.
On Friday they invited us to their small company party – it was really nice, thank you for that beautiful day, we had a lot of fun!
We are so grateful to stay here in Denmark and we're going home with many beautiful memories and gained many experience.

Hello to everybody. I hope you enjoy reading our blog. At first I 
would like to say thank you to everybody who made this Exchange possible (Garten Moser, Erasmus+, and our teachers). I am very lucky to be here in Denmark. The danish people are 
so lovely - most of all my colleagues Steen, Christian and our boss, Jesper, from the company "elmerhoj" I am working for.
Working in Denmark is very interesting and I am learning a lot. I 
recognized that there are many similarities but also differences in landscape gardening between Germany and Denmark. Different are, for example, the materials that are used for building the fundament below an area built out of stones. So working here is very cool, just the weather could be a little bit better. However, our Boss is so Kind and equipped us with extra rain clothes.Aalborg, the place where we are staying, is a nice city with many places for having a beer, doing some sports activities or simply enjoying the weather. I enjoy all of it! Today we are going to do some tourist stuff at the west cost of Denmark.
I am really looking forward to the next days!

Here a few pictures of our work in Denmark:

Better than a hedge?!


What a great underground :)


Creating some nice parking places!





Nice greetings.Christoph

I have been working at Randers Reignskov tropical zoo now for one and a half weeks and I am still amazed everyday in a new way.
Before arriving at Randers Regniskov, I thought, I would work in a "normal" zoo, as they exist in almost every bigger city in the world.
Sometimes they are connected to a botanical garden as well. So, flora and fauna can be shown in an almost scientifical way.
Surprisingly, RR has a very different and almost unique concept.

A whole biotop is growing under huge domes - three of them. Each dome represents a different continent, "Africa", "Asia" and "South America".
There, all innocuous and non-venomous plants and animals live and grow together in a hot and misty atmosphere. It is like having a "rainforest in the middle of Danish town".
It is a pleasure, to work within this man-made biotop.
Just planting a tree here can be a very exciting task.
Whilst I was digging a hole for a tree, a blue feathered, knee high bird joined me without any fear and waited for worms and insects to appear from the freshly dug soil.

Sometimes, some of the birds look you straight in the eye, and I can swear, at that moment, they are trying to communicate with you. ;)
After finishing the dig, I took a little tree and placed it in the freshly dug hole. This action stirred a monkey's interest. It came down from a nearby tree and sat down on a branch right next to my head. Like the bird, it appeared to observe my every action.


In these moments, you just have to stop your work momentarily, look at all the plants and animals around you and gaze at it all in wonder. Nature is so precious.

When my time here comes to an end, I will miss working in such a beautiful lively place.

Only an hour drive away from Aalborg you can find the little village Skagen. At first there is nothing special about it. It is a nice little fishing village with red brick roofs and white windows. But Skagen is a special place. Only a some minutes away up the coast you can find a place called Grenen, it's the northernmost corner of Denmark. It has a beautiful coastline and here you can witness a great spectacle of nature. This is the place were North and East Sea meet or like they say in Denmark Kattegat and Skagerak . If you ever wanted to say you stood in two seas at the same time you have to come here. You can witness both seas meeting each other by the stirred water when the waves clash together.

Maybe because this is a special place of nature or it's the air around, you definitely have a special feeling of admiration while strolling along the coast. Many guides talk about the special light this place has and it truly is a beautiful place where you can take lots of photos.
Make sure to always take a rain-cape with you otherwise you could be surprised by the rain. The weather changes a lot in Denmark because the sea is all around it so even at a sunny place like Skagen you can suddenly get drenched if you are not careful enough.
It was a wonderful weekend we spend all together and Louise and Jakob who are staying in Randers joined us as well. I'm definitely looking forward to the next weekend where we can get together again.

Two of us, Louise and me, are staying in Randers with host familys.
Randers is the 6th biggest "town" in Denmark and like an hour car drive away from Aalborg, where the rest of us stays.
One of the greatest tourist attractions there is "Randers Regnskov", a zoological botanical garden.
The lush, green environment there is home to everything from tiny, industrious leaf-cutter ants to the majestic jaguar, whisking you in the blink of an eye from the cool temperatures of northern Europe into a tropical wonderland...
And thats our working place for the next three weeks.
After er were shown around on monday we could finally start working the next day.
Our task was to cut all the greens grown over and through the fence wich isolates the property of Randers Regnskov. It is important for protecting the fence, otherwise the trees would destroy it with their strong growth.
Some of the limbs we cut were given to the goats, pigs and cows and it was a pleasure to see how happy they were nibbling the leaves and the bark.
After a whole day of cutting we were exhausted but happy.
Everyone at Randers Regnskov is very nice and helpful.
For myself i had little troubles with the english language but i am here to improve that and think it will get better within the next three weeks.
I am really looking forward for the next days.

Jakob Wilhelm

After three days of work I am getting used to live in this new environment, from Aalborg to Denmark you can see differences to Germany but also many similarities.
Our welcome at Buus&Co on Monday was warmly and we got a tour around the company, so we wouldn't get lost. The company recently moved to a newer and bigger location and so it is hard to navigate for newcomers.
I was put in the maintenance part of the company and so I got to trim hedges, mow lawn and to clear beds of weed.

My colleagues Martin and Morten told me quite a lot about working in Denmark and what places I should visit in my leisure. I am really looking forward to those.
What amazed me most was how different the gardens look in Denmark, but if you look close you can still see the same plants everywhere.
'Lonicera nitida' as ground-cover plants, 'Fagus sylvatica' as hedges and even the same weeds torture the Danish landscapers ('Elymus repens' just grows everywhere).
And no matter if you call it "slåen" or "Schlehdorn" as landscaper we call it 'Prunus spinosa' and so everyone can talk about the same plant.

After a long trip with one stop in Hamburg, we arrived in Aalborg yesterday.
It`s our first time in Denmark, so everything is new and exciting.
Soon after we arrived, we met Finn, he showed us around at Sportshøjskole and gave us the important details about our stay here in Aalborg.
In the evening we walked around in the city and visited the harbour.
After a long day we finally got to bed and slept like a log. ...

... Early with the sunrise our first workday began.
Isabelle and I are working together at OKNygaard and arrived there at 7 o`clock and we enjoyed a warm welcome.
We were assigned to the maintenance team and planted many Symphoricarpus x chenaultii `Hancock`(It`s a plant we definitely know!) in Frederikshavn in front of an apartment complex.

It was really interesting to see the differences between planting in Germany and Denmark. There are not many but some things are slightly different.
It was a great first day and we had a lot of fun.



We are looking forward to the next days and hope we will experience many difference things.

Good night! Godnat! And sleep well. :)


P.S.: It doesn`t matter where you are, you will always meet a "Schwabe".
We had a nice encounter with a man who lived in Ludwigsburg many years ago and he still knows how to speak "schwäbisch".

After one week back at home I had enough time to
think about my trip in Denmark.
I am so grateful that I had the opportunity to spend
three weeks in a foreign country for living and
working there.
It was a great experience to see how other companies
are working.
I could find out many differences, for example that
they use other materials or different tools.
I promised my Danish colleagues that If I come back
some time, I will bring them an original German shovel ;)
There was also enough free time to discover the city of
Aalborg and the beautiful landscape around.
Moreover the trips to the sea on the weekends were
great, especially the trip to Skagen, where East-and
Northsea come together.

Now it is time to say thank you to all who realized this
amazing project .
Thank you to my Danish company Buus & Co.
which treated us like real colleagues.
Especially thanks to Per for his great engagement and
hospitality.
Thanks to Marc, our cool guide in Aarhus.
Furthermore thanks to our German teachers
Mrs. Mangold and Mr. Schrader and to the Danish
teacher Finn for their great organization and support.
Thanks to my German mates who spent this time
with me.
Last but not least thank you to my company at home
“ Park und Garten Stefan Kelch” that supports me
at any time.

Greetings
Sonja

Now my third day of work in Germany again is over and I'm writing this blog to past my time (3 weeks) in Aalborg/ Denmark. It was such a great trip I can't describe with words. I met so many nice peoples there and learned a lot about there life in Denmark. I'm spechless about the hospitality of the most danish people. I also really enjoyed the nature especially the beach. Furthermore I learned a lot about the different ways to work in Germany and in Denmark like using other tools and materials. Now our trip is over and it's time to say thank you to all those people who were responsible for this foreign internship. First I want to thank my boss Richard Messerle who gave me the chance to go there. Then I want thank all those teachers who where responsible for the trip especially Finn Rassmussen. We enjoyed the day with you. Furthermore I want to thank Martin Linnemann the head of the company Buus & Co. who gave us the possibillity to work in Denmark. You have a good organized company with a very nice climate. In the company Buus & Co. I want to thank also Per Kjaer who showed us his amazing garden (park) and gave us a private guide through one of the biggest nature reserves in Denmark after making some barbeque together. Last but not least I want to thank my workmates Sonja, Patrick, Max, Dan, Jonas, Fee and Felix for the nice time together. To sum it up it was a great and instructive time. Thank you! Greetings Dominik

After a long an exhausting journey home, I can allready say, that I will miss Denmark, Aalborg and its people a lot - especially the people of Buus & Co, where i could work, laugh and learn a lot about the work as a gardener, Denmark and the Danish language. It was a nice trip and nothing negative to say at all (except the long tour in my old and trusty VW Golf III).


With this post, I will express my thank to everyone, who made it possible, that such a nice experience could happen. Thanks to Dan, Max, Sonja, Dominik and Patrick as my colleagues, co-drivers and roomates. Thanks Felix and Fee for your visit, it was a nice evening. It was a great pleasure to travel with you.


Thanks to Buus & Co and its employes, where we always felt welcome and almost home. Especially I want to say thank you to Per for his private tours and for showing us his garden-garden in his and our free time and all the stuff he did for us. Thanks Leo for keeping my Golf fuelled all the times. Thank you Martin and Inga for having us in the company. Not to forget Jens, Eivan, Ellen and the other workers of Buus. Kalle, thank you for the belt :-P.


Thanks to Mrs Mangold, Mr Schrader, Mr Jepsen and Mr Thybo for making it possible for us to visit Denmark at all. Especial thank goes to Mr Rasmussen Slaikjer for the organisation of our housing, the visit at the Agri College and the tour through and around Aalborg.

Thanks to my own Company, Mr Sauter and Mr Brachmann as well for borrowing me to our colleagues in Denmark.

I will never forget, what I saw, felt and learned in Denmark and I am looking forward to maybe seeing it again sometimes.

Greetings
Jonas

Today we were working in aalborg at a patio we layed down some plates and leveled every single plate because we used a special system to attach them.

But like all good things our trip here to denmark has an end too and yeah its today:( We are all sad that we have to leave because it was a great time here and I enjoyed every minute here in aalborg I never met as much friendly and hospitable pepole than I did here in 3 weeks.
Now it´s time to say goodbye and I want to say a big thank you to the Company where we were invited to work Buus &co it was a great time with you guys i will miss it!
Iam looking forward to see you guys again.


Greetings Dan