Historical Gardens

The description of Powerscourt in Ireland by its owner turns out to be a vital source of information for anyone interested in how (the garden of) a late 19th century estate was created over a period of decades. Mervyn E. Wingfield mentions many names of gardeners, sculptors, companies that sell or auction statues and seeds, [...]

In the course of a year I have come across very similar lion statues that can be found in Sweden, The Netherlands and Ireland. They are not only similar in shape, but they all seem to date from the third quarter of the 19th century (1850-1875). The description of the Irish garden by its owner/creator sheds light on the common source of all statues. Unsurprisingly, the source is found in Rome.

The Copenhagen conference on climate change of the upcoming week shall be dealing with serious challenges for our planet, economies and lifestyle. It is conceivable that climate change, if it is not stopped or stopping of its own accord, will also have an impact on our gardens. Planting (im)possibilities and shifting flowering times immediately come [...]

The story of the introduction of the landscape style in The Netherlands has proved to be difficult to uncover, despite many attempts. Information about the layout of those ‘new’ gardens in the form of maps or plans does not pre-date the late 1760s. Which plants were used to embellish the new type of garden with [...]

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 [...]

Which -if we recall- really was a story of three lions: two at De Paauw and the one at Drottningholm. It turns out we are talking about at least four lions. Some closer inspection of other photos of the Swedish lion revealed that there are also two lions at Drottningholm.1 It is not the same [...]

After last night’s surprising victory over England by the Dutch cricket team, which has caused both a shock and words of praise in Britain, one has to wonder where it all began. Certainly, cricket in Holland has never grown into a large and important sport, but as it turns out it was introduced at least [...]

And then I recognised a lion. During a relaxed browse on the internet through photos of Drottningholm, the Swedish royal palace near Stockholm. Which is strange, because I’ve never been to Sweden (let alone to Africa). My last visit to any zoo must have been 4 years ago, and even then I saw no lions. [...]