Historical Gardens

While the World War II bunkers at Beeckestijn are buried forever, the bunkers at Toorenvliedt are made visible. One of them is even turned into a WW II information center. An idea to introduce at other locations?

There is a lot to tell about Beeckestijn at the moment, since it has entered yet a new stage in its development. The estate has finally been transferred to its destined owners: Natuurmonumenten and Vereniging Hendrik de Keyser. More about that and several other developments must wait, till I have time. Today I just wanted [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

Things have been fairly quiet surrounding Beeckestijn the past year. To remind ourselves where things stand: last year, the decision was made to transfer the estate from the Velsen council to nature preservation society Natuurmonumenten. That could not be done directly, so Beeckestijn was transferred to a ‘middle-man’, the Dienst Landelijke Gebieden (DLG), a subdivision [...]

Earlier this month, the first step in the transfer of Beeckestijn to its new owners was finally completed by the transfer of ownership from the Velsen council to the department of DLG.1 It has taken all parties involved almost 6 months to agree on the terms and conditions under which the transfer takes place. It [...]

You may ask yourself: “What does a picture of the moon have to do with historical gardens?”. My answer: more than you presumably think (and the fact that it is a great picture is in itself reason enough to show it here).1 For example: for centuries gardeners have loosely scheduled large portions of their work [...]