Garden club

The garden club is a sub-group of ProParte.

2019 annual report

This year there were many interesting exhibitions on gardens and plants.

We visited them all: we were in Siebold House to see the beautiful flower prints, in Teylers Musem  for the exceptional botanical drawings of the Bauer brothers, in the National Museum of Antiquities to study Medieval gardens, and finally we enjoyed the gardens of Monet in the Kunstmuseum in The Hague.

But, of course, we also visited some beautiful gardens, created and nurtured by the most creative female gardeners. We went to the Hubertushof in Leusden, spent two days in Bant in the North-East polder and refreshed our memories with a visit to Emely’s garden in Oud Ade.

In September we went to Rotterdam to admire the first harvestable roof. We were very impressed with the many new ideas flourishing in Rotterdam to make the city greener.

In December we brought our garden year to a close by making Christmas decorations for the ProParte Christmas lunch.

Our garden club currently has some 20 (female) members.

The next event was a pleasant stay in Hotel De Gouden Karper in Hummelo. After dinner - in spite of some technical problems - we watched the documentary 'Five Seasons' (Piet Oudolf), so that we were well prepared for our visit the following morning to the Oudolf garden, also in Hummelo. In the course of the morning we left for the Open Garden Days in Bingerden, where there was a lot to see, not to mention a lot to buy! 

During the summer months we stayed closer to home:
On 18 July we visited the botanical garden in Delft, that has a noticeably different collection from the Leiden Hortus. The collection in Delft is more focused on applications in construction and industry, whereas in Leiden the botanical garden from its earliest days has always comprised plants that are important for medicine.

We visited the Festina Lente nursery in Katwijk on 16 August, which we combined with a lunch at the Valkenburg Lake.

With fungus expert Hans Adema as our guide, we walked in the Van Duivenvoorde park on 20 September. After the walk, we enjoyed an excellent lunch on the patio of the Hof van Duivenvoorde.

On 18 October we took a walk through the woods of the beautiful Leyduin estate in Vogelenzang, which was at its most beautiful with its carpet of autumn leaves. The path led us along the very special Belvedere and a historic kitchen garden to the Gasterij, where we concluded our Garden Year with a refreshing cup of tea.