Garden design: Flourishing passion
When the first sunrays of spring meet the garden of Rika van Delden, it starts to rumble heavily in the ground. For about ten inches deep in the crumb sit at least 35 000 flower bulbs. Penetrate the warmth to them, spread their brown shells and clear the way for the sharp green shoots, which then seek the light.
First, snowdrops, wood anemones, snow pride and blue oysters appear on the screen of the almost half-acre plant in Oostwold, the Netherlands. Here, about 20 kilometers east of Groningen, the 56-year-old began at the beginning of the 90s with a project that attracts several thousand visitors every year. The children were out of the house, behind which there was little more then an elongated field. Her father, a farm laborer, had grown vegetables for the family throughout his life. Now the enterprising woman was itching to make something beautiful out of it. "I did not know how it would end," she smiles today.
There never was a plan. Only her love of plant life, which she shared with friends, with whom she swarmed exploring through strange gardens, and the energetic support of her husband drove her to it. Over the past few years, ten different garden rooms have been created that illuminate very different aspects of this green passion like a kaleidoscope: purple floral treasures, baroque book figures, an opulent pond complex and a large table arranged like a stage, depending on the season , The best time to visit the garden is in May, when a sea of tulips, hyacinths and daffodils is blooming (info at www.tuinfl eur.nl).
Checkerboard flowers with their original patterned flowers grow particularly well in damp locations.
Rika van Delden loves productions with plants and pots. Behind a shed she has stacked funcias of all colors and sizes decoratively in zinc tubs
The entire garden is framed by a high beech hedge. It also shares self-contained areas such as this orchard with squares of boxwood and daffodils.
Rika van Delden arranges a large table like a stage in every season, here with hyacinths, blue stars and a collection of gray-leaved fat hens
The Baroque beech cone is surrounded by a colorful group of hyacinths, tulips, ornamental onions and pearl hyacinths. This natural blend comes when the onions are mixed in a wheelbarrow, randomly distributed by hand and then buried where they land.
