(augustus)

(De foto’s zijn aanklikbaar voor een vergroting)

Picture: Ton Muller | De Boschhoeve, Wolfheze (NL)

The best time for having 6.000 square meters of land is Spring. I’m totally amazed by the transformation of the soil, the plants, the trees and the view.

Only a month ago the land was still grey and depressing but like a miracle overnight it changed into a bursting of life vivid green. The fruit trees are blossoming, the fresh green leaves are popping up everywhere as well as the first weeds But this year we will turn the garden into this Eden of Experimental Gardening. With our friend Hendrik Dekker who is a professional Landscape Architect we are planting a complete new ‘biotope’ like the picture here taken at De Boschhoeve.

Let me explain the new set up of the gardens…

First Part

Traditional Orchard

The first part, close to the mill, starting at the kitchen door, will stay the ‘traditional’ orchard with narcissus in spring and a clean cut lawn during the summer.
We’ve planted over 300 bulbs in a variety of 25 species. It’s a mixture of wild and cultivated like Narcissus ‘Altruist’, ‘Ara’, ‘Barrett Browning’, ‘Poeticus’ and ‘Stella’. Some species are unique and even antique, collected from old farms all over Europe. The field will be full grown with Narcissus in spring at the time the fruit trees are blossoming. Without us knowing there’s a HUGE group of fanatics who are more than natural interested in Narcisseae.

Further more we planted Tulipa ‘Whittallii” and Gladiolus byzantinus and thousands of grape hyacinths.

To emphasis the natural stream around the orchard we planted Rodgersia, Cattails, Miscanthus (wild grasses), Day Lilies, Iris, Acanthus and Astilbe.

Second Part

Wild Flower Garden

The second part situated between the village hill road and the reservoir dyke will be surrounded by a hedge of European beech. This court is divided into 9 squares filled with new collections of cereals mixed with special field flowers like black and white poppies, mustard plants, foxglove and so on. The path through the court will be an extension of the field and therefore covered with grass. At the end of the path a cosy bench will invite you to sit down and enjoy the perspective back to the mill. The last few weekends we’ve been working on this part of the garden since it’s a huge amount of work to get things right.

The exact square plan:

#1: Common Wheat, white and pink Poppies, and black Cornflower.
#2: Rey, Larkspur and red Onions.
#3: Barley, Coriander, red Saltbush, red Fennel, tricolored Corn.
#4: Rey, Chard and Cumin.
#5: Barley, Mustard plants and red Loosestrife.
#6: Common Wheat, black Poppies, black Sunflower and white Devil-in-a-bush.
#7: Spelt, Scorpion weeds, Chives, Common Rue and black Basil.
#8: Mulleins, green Fennel, Common Hollyhock, Alsum and Common Patatoes.
#9: Grasses, Spelt, Caraway, Lovage, and common Corn.

Third Part

Natural Landscape

The third part of our land will be a birch ‘forest’ wet land blended with day lilies, wild grasses and willow. Here adventure will be the main focus.

You can follow the sprouting of the garden at Flickr: Supergîtes’ Shaping the Garden.

Korenbloem (Centaurea cyanus)

Misschien dat we een beetje de ‘softere ‘ toer op gaan met deze foto’s maar ‘k vond het toch een paar mooie…

Een veld met korenbloempjes...

Korenbloemen in 't veld...

Een late avondzon...