Alphems arboretum, Botanical garden in Floby, Sweden

Alphems Arboretum holds about 220 broadleaf and just over 100 conifer species, one of Sweden's largest tree collections planted by a single person. Frans Johan Gegerfeldt shaped the flat heather ground at Rolkebacken into hills and hollows, and built stone beds, walls and leaf composts from stones he collected.

Frans Johan Gegerfeldt, born in Bragnum in 1865, began planting noble firs by his cottage in 1898. In 1903 he moved to Rolkebacken, where he created the arboretum on flat heather land, shaping hills and hollows. He worked as a rural mail carrier from 1910, and in 1948 received the Swedish Patriotic Society's medal. After his death in 1953, the Vilske local heritage association bought the garden in 1956 to keep it open to the public.

The garden is run by Föreningen Alphems Arboretum, formed in 1988, after Vilske Hembygds- och Fornminnesförening bought it in 1956 to keep it open to the public. The association maintains the plantings and stone features that Frans Johan Gegerfeldt built.

The arboretum lies just northwest of Floby in Falköping Municipality. Gegerfeldt shaped the flat heather ground into hills and hollows, so paths follow uneven terrain; sturdy shoes help. The garden is open to the public, and the entrance to the oldest section is marked by the stone installation Domedagsfrid.

The Dead River is made only of stones, with no water at all. It follows a curve from a symbolic spring to a symbolic lake, an idea Gegerfeldt took from Japanese garden design. Near the entrance to the oldest part of the garden he built a stone feature he called "Domedagsfrid", gathering there his strangest finds, stones he hauled home by wheelbarrow at night.