Feb. 2007 Issue of "The Garden" RHS Magazine

[Maggi Young]

I've just opened the latest issue of the RHS publication, The Garden and was delighted to find an article on the wonderful gardens at Utrecht Botanic Garden, where Wiert Nieuman has overseen some of the most innovative containers for the rock garden. You may remember some interesting pictures from there in the Old Forum, from the visits to  the Dutch International Conference of Alpine Plants, see this page:
http://www.srgc.org.uk/discus/messages/1078/10834.html
 I propose to re-post some pix from that page here, to illustrate the exciting things happening in Utrecht.
After the main article in The Garden, there is a super page headed,"Reclaim and Recycle" where Kaye Griffiths shows how she has constructed a planter from a very large roof tile, and some bricks and terracottta pipes for the RHS Harlow Carr garden.

Kaye Griffith and Henk Westerhof, who took the first batch of photos reposted here.

















You can see the captions on the old forum, I just wanted to give you the flavour here.
It would be terrific if we were able to show here some photos of what Kay has made: perhaps she will read this and oblige?

The example Kaye shows in the magazine is along the lines of those planters in the first of Henk's photos.
No intention of any naturalism, just a great home for plants.









 

[Maggi Young]

The thumbnail pix will all "click" to enlarge, of course.
Here are a few of Ian Young's pix from Utrecht BG, again showing their new age plantings, not that this is, by any means, all there is to these wonderful gardens, as you will see from the Old Forum. Ian was greatly impressed by what he saw there. Reclaim, recycle, make do and mend, all a great inspiration to those who have no natural stone to work with to build a "rock" garden.




Ian had never seen a bigger Haberlea rhodopensis than the one flourishing on the top of this ball of broken paving stones!

[henkw]

Here some more pictures from the botanical garden in Utrecht.

Henk Westerhof

[henkw]

another shot

[Joakim B]

You can have more than one picture in the post by using "more attachments" under "additional options"
Really interesting pictures
Thanks

[henkw]

Sorry for the mistakes firsttime postings,

Henk Westerhof

[Maggi Young]

Hello, Henk, great to have you posting here. Hope you and all the Family are well? M

Aren't these the most interesting new ways of planting? I think they sit well in a modern setting. I don't say that I would wish all my garden to have so much hard landscaping but I love to see this. Mind you, with raised beds, stone walls and so on, I suppose our garden DOES have lots of "stuff" already!!

[Joakim B]

Henk it was ment as help not as a complaint 

I like the pics and it is an interesting way of planting so please continue to post pics now that You have got the hang of it.

Kind regards
Joakim

[henkw]

Thanks Maggi,

Doing O.K. here in Holland!

Me to, I do not have the room and space  those big recycle rockgarden earth balls. My garden is to small


Henk Westerhof

[henkw]

Dear, Joakim B,

I Know is was not a complaint, but firstime aways somthing does go wrong. I do have more pictures those are perhaps for tomorrow!

Do you know how big the avatar may be?

Henk.

[Maggi Young]

It is good that Kaye has taken these ideas back with her to England, isn't it? We need more innovative techniques like this to inspire, or even to annoy people... it makes us think and make more of our space around us. Look at what Chloe and Joakim grow in their balconies... well, not with big sewer pipes,they'd be even  heavier than 10000 crocus, but it shows that you can grow in anything!
It is like the peat wall that Peter Korn and Johan Nilson have made for Julia at the Explorers' Garden in Pitlochry: an old material but used in a fresh way, combining with stone work and so on; marvelous!

Henk, I don't think it matters what size the avatar is to begin with, I believe the system reduces it to the correct size.

[henkw]

Here are my final pictures of the botanical garden of Utrecht ( for the moment )

This link below is of the botanical garden of Utrecht, sorry it is in Dutch!

http://www.bio.uu.nl/bottuinen/    ( corrected link)


Henk.

[henkw]

Sorry

http://www.bio.uu.nl/bottuinen/

I hope that this link works better,

Henk

first link is now correct, also M

[KentGardener]

wow - thanks for the images guys - I really like it when I see 'different' ideas for gardens and the planted spheres are great.

I collect books that have original (and quite often absolutely bizarre) ideas for garden design and haven't seen this done before.

with kind regards

John

[kaygri]

Hi, thought you might like to see how the Utrecht inspired planter is doing! The plants grew extremley well, i was quite surprised. The only casualty was the Aeoniopsis in the pipe. I have lots of spares so will replace that when the weather improves..

I hope you can see these images. Second pic is a picture I took yesterday in the morning, from the top to show the plants. First shot is the same planter but someone late afternoon decided that the Saxifraga 'Dracula' would be far nicer in their garden and removed it.

The other one is an interior view of the main display house, which is looking nice and flowery at the moment.