NETHERLANDS GARDEN
What was once pastureland is now an immaculate display of classical English elements landscaped with Dutch designer Mien Ruys very much in mind
Classic English elements and a passion for the Dutch designer Mien Ruys make an excellent combination in what was once pasture land.
There are not many of us who can claim to have such a thorough understanding of their own garden as Sarina Meijer. Her ancestors have farmed this land since the 1860s and she was born here, eventually inheriting the house and grounds when her father died in 1965. The garden has taken several forms over the years, including pastureland, and although it is smaller than it once was, the design seen here today is one that has been choreographed with precision and flair.
In the early 1980s, Sarina visited the garden of the influential Dutch landscape architect Mien Ruys and experienced an epiphany. Ruys, known across the world for her modernist designs, with clean lines and use of loosely planted perennials, inspired a whole generation of Dutch gardeners including the contemporary designer Piet Oudolf. Sarina wanted to replicate this simplicity of form and engaged the acclaimed Dutch designer Arend Jan van der Horst. He asked her, “How many hours do you want to devote to your garden?” Today, almost four decades later, she still spends eight-hour days working outside, which gives you an idea of her reply.
To begin the transformation Sarina threw her considerable energy into researching and drawing up a plan with the plants she loved – geraniums, agapanthus, old scented roses, sedums, hostas and euphorbias. “In the early Eighties there weren’t many places in Holland where you could get the kind of plants I wanted, so I brought most of them from English nurseries.” She visited England two or three times a year, garnering ideas on trips to numerous gardens, from Sissinghurst and Great Dixter to the then relatively unknown Beth Chatto Gardens in Essex. “In just six years I saw
forty or fifty English gardens and nurseries, taking notes all the time.” Like her heroine Vita Sackville-west, Sarina has kept a scrupulous diary of her horticultural ups and downs since 1985.
The garden is low lying, to the extent that Sarina often unearthed shells when she first began digging the soil, which was less than a foot-and-a-half deep. Through the regular addition of organic matter – she is an enthusiastic compost maker – the soil now supports plenty of lush growth, which is shielded by a belt of mature trees around the perimeter of the property. Following the Mien Ruys principles of having several distinct areas within a larger space, the design comprises a herb and rose garden, a formal terrace, an orchard, woodland and long herbaceous borders that sit in the middle of the lawn, surrounded on three sides by spirit-level straight hedges of yew and box, which Sarina still clips herself. Sadly, the box began to show the effects of blight in 1995, so Sarina has been gradually replacing it all with yew, a laborious task.
In 2007, in her mid-sixties, Sarina felt that the garden needed to be more manageable. “It required updating – in Dutch, we call it a ‘fresh breeze’ – and Arend advised me to do it while I was still fit.” To that end, she sold off some of the land, reducing the garden by a third, and refined what was left by adding a reflecting pond overlooked by a pavilion where she and her husband Pieter-jan now like to sit on warm evenings.
This, however, is no retirement garden in which to absent-mindedly potter. Sarina still works long hours, in all weathers, keeping it immaculate and showing it to her many groups of admirers; proof, surely, of the longevity and optimism of a good gardener.