Historical Gardens

In an attempt to revitalize the layout and to ensure visitor safety, de Keukenhof is ‘replacing’ 180 year old beeches in an avenue. While they’re at it, they seem to create something de Keukenhof has never witnessed before. Or…

Land en Bosch was bought by Natuurmonumenten in December 2007, as mentioned in this earlier post. It is part of a large group of estates the organisation owns in ‘s-Graveland. Natuurmonumenten has since then been preparing the estate for public entrance (in parts of the garden). Most of that work has remained unseen, and will [...]

Misplaced park furniture can ruin the total experience of a perfect design.

Massive protests in Stuttgart, where 300 year old trees are cut down for an underground train station.

The strips of corten steel that are used to (re)create parterres de broderie are purely functional. Somehow -and to my dismay- the increasing interest in steel as a gardening material seems to result in ugly rims of steel around box hedges.

The replanting of an island at Broekhuizen was done in a ridiculous manner, showing how bad execution can ruin good ideas. The good thing is that it won’t be visible anymore in a few years time.

Sometimes one gets bored of all the threats that parks and designed landscapes undergo in the struggle with project developers and/or local governmental bodies. “Why do they not see the value of these places, especially in a densely populated country like The Netherlands, and why do they not comply to the rules?“, you would like [...]

Interesting information has come to my attention in the last few months, and of course it has some bearing on the garden of Beeckestijn: avenues lined with two types of trees. On the Beeckestijn map (1772) we see such an avenue in the continuation of the central axis at the end of the garden, right [...]