We all know Amsterdam as a urban center arranged along tree - lined canals . Some are fronted with fine houses , others lowly one , but all partake in similar characteristics – grand edifices , punctuated by vast window and lead by imaginary gables . Less well known are the gardens , which tarry in the long shadows of the buildings to which they go . On one weekend each year , twenty nine of these hidden garden , many of which belong to individual individuals , dispose open their heavy doors to the world . Whilst the garden may be underground , the subject days certainly are not . Visitors clutching their hopeful green passepartouts jam the quays of the three main canals where most of the gardens are to be found .
In the 17th century , Amsterdam ’s garden were productive 1 , dedicate to the finish of vegetables and yield trees . Enlightened statute law secure that only a certain proportion of each new epithelial duct - side plot could be built on . As the urban center ’s elite group grew in wealthiness they acquired country acres which were better suited to providing food for their household . Town houses were principally occupied during the wintertime month and their garden became decorative ; structured quad to be appreciate from the comfort of indoors . Originality was not considered a virtue at the prison term and urban center plans of seventeenth century Amsterdam show remarkably similar layouts iterate from property to property .
By the mid 18th hundred , early formal flair had give way to the English fashion for ‘ landscape ’ gardens , characterised by snaky course , lawn and royal trees . Grander households constructed all right summerhouses , guest lodges and stable at the end of their plot , often giving them the show of much grander building . The best example of this can be seen at the Museum Van Loon , a double - fronted townhouse , still partially use up the Van Loon kinsfolk , where the coach theatre and stables were disguised as an ornate villa . The gardens here , having been much simpler at the routine of the 19th hundred , have been pass to 17th 100 formalness . The roses in the radiating seam areRosa‘Gruss an Aachen ’ .
Nearby , another of Amsterdam ’s most distinguished and cultured couples , the Wilett - Holthuysens , make a typically baroque garden bounded by pleach lime . All the garden of this period were design to be apprize from the first storey ( orbel étage ) where the family had their most graceful reception room . The result is telling at a glance but not especially plight to stroll around . Control , rather than exuberance , was the order of the day .
At the Museum Geelvinck on Herengracht the garden has two very different moods . The plot immediately to the stern of the glamorous mansion has been reelect to graceful formality , sporting a foresighted puddle and fountain designed in 1991 by Robert Broekema . The area to the rear of the carriage family , which fronts Keizersgracht , has a very different flavor ; a suspect refuge compose of infield - determine box - border bed occupy with Hosta , geraniums and more rosiness .
The garden specialise in roses and has a fine solicitation of cross onetime and new . I was peculiarly take with a social climber namedRosa‘Citronella ’ , which has sweetly sweet-scented flowers not the least redolent of citrus . A good natural selection of inheritance rosebush was offered byBelle Époque Roses of Aalsmeer .
The imposing garden house at Keizersgracht 173 is no deeper than a kitchen cupboard
Ships read in Amsterdam sailed around the world bringing back good from the Dutch colony . As in England , the urban center ’s gardens soon brim with exotica from the furthest corner of the Earth . Quite what happened to Amsterdammers ’ exuberance for the uncommon and unusual I am not sure . Today ’s town garden for the most part adhere to the same palette of hydrangea , Hosta , philadelphus , ivies , camellias and box , with the odd plume of aruncus or shower of gentle campanulas to brighten the composition . Some of this is deport out of requirement . Gardeners have had to seek out plants that will bear the dry shade created by vast trees that their predecessors planted in pursuit of the landscape idyll . It ’s an way out have across the metropolis as copper beeches , buck chestnuts , oaks and elms accomplish due date . From above , Amsterdam ’s gardens come out almost wooded , a far cry from their tightly corseted root . Despite the constraints of shade , with which I empathize , I was surprised at the want of variety and experimentation with plant , which is in stark demarcation to English gardens . Perhaps something of the 17th century resistance to uniqueness lingers on in 21st century Dutch gardeners .
Several of the gardens on the duty tour have been laid out within the last decade . They tend to make unspoilt use of toilsome landscape gardening to form seating areas , especially in area of the garden that catch the Lord’s Day . This would have been a horrible conception for the residents of old Amsterdam , who looked for every opportunity to protect their noble skin from the sun . Brick paviours are most commonly used , a minute profile allowing for svelte breaking ball and pattern to be created . This gave me a few ideas for our garden in London where this treatment would be perfect .
The garden at Amstel 216 appears modern , but strike me as a contemporary take on traditional Dutch style , incorporate many features that would have been familiar to other inhabitant . A guest lodge - seminal fluid - office simply breathes new life into the idea of an cosmetic building to admire from the primary house . An armillary sphere sundial , de rigeur in the 17th century , absorb an clear part of the garden and acts as a focal peak . It ’s mirrored on the other side by a fine sculpture of a horse . Not visible in the painting below are two puerile Tree , a copper beech and a tulip tree , proceed the English landscape painting garden custom of planting Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree which will at long last outgrow their welcome . The function of dog-iron Sir Henry Wood was the only deviation from the tried and test palette of hydrangea , hostas , box and geraniums . peculiarly for such a watery city , pools and water features are a comparatively raw development in Amsterdam and would not have appear in other garden designs . The Netherlands have a complex relationship with water , it having enable Brobdingnagian power and encourage the rats which channelise the dreaded pestis . Hence stagnant body of water was rarely welcome in the city of old . Other new characteristic in this carefully composed garden are the wheel shelters , secreted behind blocks of yew hedging so that they can not be see from the menage .
Pools and water features are relatively recent additions to most Dutch gardens
Amsterdam ’s loose garden weekend is a unique opportunity , not only to confabulate some very limited gardens , but also to delve into the city ’s fascinating account . For small gardener a glance of these shady , often leave out garden reveal a host of clever ideas for maximize the appeal of a small distance . I for one came aside exhort by the owners ’ ingenuity and boost to keep try out with our own shady , clumsy metropolis garden . PracticalitiesMost of the opened garden are situated on Amsterdam ’s three encircling canals , the Herengracht , Keizersgracht and Prinsengracht . Walking between them is well-heeled , although bike are always an alternative in Amsterdam . A passepartout which gives access to all the gardens can be be purchased for € 15 from four primal gardens , include Museum Van Loon and Amnesty International . Be mindful that some of the gardens are access via lowly doorways and wear down stairs and mind your footstep . To see all the gardens in one mean solar day requires something of a itinerary march , so I ’d commend go around them over two or three days , take note that one or two do not open on all three days . We find Sunday to be the quietest day , and Saturday by far the busiest . Many gardens provide refreshments , roll a glass of vino to sandwich and homemade apple patty . Also worth a spirit , but not part of the open weekend , is the Hortus , Amsterdam ’s historic botanical garden . The 2015 garden loose days will be June 19 , 20 and 21 . Clickherefor more detail For a more in depth chronicle of Amsterdam ’s enthralling canal house gardens , track down‘Canal House Gardens of Amsterdam , The Hidden Green of the City’by Saskia Albrecht and Tonko Grever .
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Categories : Flowers , Foliage , Garden Design , Landscape Design , flora , Small Gardens , Travel , Trees and Shrubs
Posted by The Frustrated Gardener
The grandiose garden of the Museum Van Loon with it’s stately coach house and towering copper beech
Reconstruction of the parterres de broderie at Museum Willet-Holthuysen
A formal garden designed by Robert Broekema in 1991 for the Museum Geelvinck
The pale yellow single flowers of Rosa ‘Citronella’ contrast well with the golden stamens
A classic combination of hydrangeas, hostas, geraniums and campanulas
Only three years old, the garden at Singel 124 was carefully designed to make the most of a narrow site
Constructed in 1996, the garden at Herengracht 68 replaced a vast warehouse constructed after WWII
A sober composition of water, paving and symmetrical planting at Amstel 216
