OPEN GARDENS IN AMSTERDAM – 30 gardens

A group of 11 WFGA members visited Amsterdam for their Open Gardens weekend around the canals.  It was a fascinating insight into what lies behind these tall beautiful buildings, some 5 floors high, plus cellars.  Built in the 17th century these houses were stately homes with flowering gardens, with coach house at the end of the garden where the coachman and carriages were housed.  These now have been restored and are now garden houses, spare rooms, elegant garden dining rooms or somewhere to house unique collections.  Many of the gardens had simple but strong design features and my impression was mainly one of clipped box and yew, lots of green, huge trees and symmetry.  Some had wonderful sculpture, beautiful antique benches, unblemished hostas, white roses often and were tiny which made it possible to see all 30 in a day and half with some good planning.

Public transport is easy to use and the streets relatively quiet as so many of the residents use bicycles.  Quite a few of gardens had refreshments of some kind ranging from coffee to wine.  An added bonus on the trip was that to get to the gardens you had to go through the house or museum which gave wonderful peeks at salons, kitchens, art galleries, and private rooms.  We got the impression that most of the gardens were maintained rather than gardened by the owners, nonetheless they were all a bit different, some taking a few minutes to view and others where one wanted to linger.

In June we had a topiary workday held at Showborough House, Twynings, Gloucestershire. A workday is to gain hands on experience, limited in numbers so all get a proper go at the task. Debbie Barber attended the day with six others and sends in this report.

Although I had done my training some years ago I realise that there is always something new to learn. I have never had a go at the fine art of topiary so decided to sign up for the workday, plus I wanted to see a beautiful garden!

We all received a hand out covering various aspects of the topic and the tutor told us loads of tips and guidance on avoiding the pitfalls, all from personal experience.

The hands on session was most informative with the opportunity to use machinery I hadn’t experienced before. We were all rather tentative at first – it was someone else’s hedge after all and if we cut it wrong very noticeable! Once we had eased our way into the task we grew in confidence and happily embarked on different shapes – balls, cubes and cloud pruning.

We also had a tour of the garden to see all the examples within the grounds – a lovely garden and wel worth the visit. An added bonus was the sculpture on display – all for sale at affordable prices. A really enjoyable day.