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In Search of Great Plants Holland and Belgium 2004
By Tony Avent
Plant Delights Nursery, Inc.
www.plantdelights.com
9241 Sauls Road
Raleigh, NC 27603
919.772.4794
I had long been trying to find time to visit the Netherlands (Holland) and Belgium and
finally in August 2004, the time arrived. On Thursday afternoon August 5, I departed
to the land of Tulips and Windmills. At my connection in Philadelphia, I met up with
fellow nurseryman Hans Hansen of Shady Oaks Nursery in Minnesota who accompanied me on
the trip. You may find August a strange time to visit Holland, but I intentionally
chose this time of year to focus on perennials and avoid the distractions of tulips,
daffodils, and hyacinths. I hope you enjoy my brief synopsis of our whirlwind tour
including 30 stops.
Friday August 7
After a good nights sleep on the plane (just kidding), we arrived at 10am
on Friday morning. The flight was quite smooth as was the rental car pickup and other
airport processing. It was obvious that the Dutch are well prepared for visitors from
abroad. After changing money (the US dollar has sunk against the Euro: 1 Euro= .80
US), we grabbed our Opel and off we went. FYI, automatic transmission is not a big
thing in Holland. The price for a standard transmission car was $600, while an
automatic was $1400. We had opted for a standard, but were shocked to hop into our
vehicle and find that they had given us an automatic instead at the cheaper price...no
complaints.
Our first stop was the nursery of Holland's hosta guru, Marco Fransen of Ter
Aar (outside Boskoop). Marco and his ever expanding young family were on vacation
in Croatia...yes, those Dutch have quite the sense of humor. Marco's dad showed us
around the display garden, the wholesale production fields, and the greenhouses of
potted hostas which are used for on-site retail sales as well as mail-order. Being
bordered by a canal (as were most of the nurseries near Boskoop), they are not able to
use many herbicides. We watched as weeding crews from Poland worked their way though
the fields weeding to the tune of US $20/hour. Fransen Nursery (www.hostakweker.nl) is located in a part of
Holland where the soil is very peat based. This means no equipment in the fields, but
they are able to grow plants such as astilbe, which are difficult on many of the other
soil types in Holland.
Friday afternoon, we visited the nearby nursery of Mark and
Rein Bulk in Boskoop. Pat McCracken of Raleigh had visited a year earlier and was
still talking about this wonderful small wholesale nursery of rare woody plants.
Indeed, it was a special collection, both of potted and field grown specimens including
many that I had never before encountered. I was particularly taken with several
mahonias, Mahonia japonica ‘Golddust', Mahonia bodinieri, and Mahonia longibracteata.
Hydrangea macrophylla ‘Jofloma' with it's bright gold foliage and pure white flowers
was also quite stunning. Gold foliage was particularly attractive in this climate and
the bright gold-foliaged Stachyurus praecox ‘Goldbeater' went on my must get list.
While the idea of gardening and having a nursery on a canal sounds appealing, it does
have its disadvantages. It seems that nursery thieves traverse the canals at night,
climb into the nurseries and steal plants. Someone had stopped by Mark's nursery
during the winter and cut his Metasequoia ‘Ogon' off at the ground to use for scion
wood. I should mention climate before I get too caught up in plants. Most of the
coastal nursery production areas in west Holland are equivalent to USDA zone 6b,
although temperatures in the 90's are quite the exception. We stayed until nearly
dark, when it was finally time to head to our hotel, the Holiday Inn in nearby Leiden
(Rembrandt's birthplace). Of all the hotels in which we stayed, this was our favorite.
The dinner buffet was quite good, and only when we finished eating did we realize that
it cost us nearly US$50 each. At least the breakfast buffet was included in the room
price along with free in-room high speed Internet.
Saturday August 7
On our second comfortable, but overcast Saturday morning, we arrived at the
Boskoop wholesale nursery of Nico
Rijnbeek and Son Nursery (www.rijnbeek.com). Rijnbeek and Son are both
growers and exporters of perennials...a rare combination in Holland. Nico was just
preparing to leave for the ISU (large perennial meeting) in Austria, but still took
time to show us around. We toured the shipping and production areas where both field
grown and potted plants are both produced and shipped. It is fascinating that our
native Phlox paniculatas never look as good in our garden as they do in photos from
Holland. They seem to do a much better job growing many of our US natives that we do
in the US. Nico's nursery must be right on the tourist routes, as boat after boat
filled with tourists went by while we were walking around. The canals serve
many other purposes, such as a source of nursery irrigation, a place to fish, swim, and
as a source of drinking water (hope they clean it well). If you need soil to build or
raise a planting bed, just use a bucket to scoop soil from the canal behind your house.
Water shortages are rarely a problem since pumps in areas with high water tables
constantly pump water from growing areas back into the canals.
Nico next took us across the street to visit his brother-in-law at J. van Zoest
Clematis Nursery. Despite the pouring rain, we enjoyed this truly amazing nursery. Every row was
perfectly maintained, which is almost impossible in a nursery growing vines. We saw
an amazing number of wonderful clematis, especially hybrids with Clematis integrifolia.
Some of my favorites are Clematis
‘Hendryetta', Clematis
‘Hendersonii', Clematis ‘Blue
Pirouette',and Clematis
‘Fascination'. Nearby were pots of the amazing Agapanthus ‘White
Heaven' with massive flower heads nearly 1' across....looks like an agapanthus with
implants...must get this one.
For our final stop of the day, we journeyed to the small town of Honselersdijk.
We have already begun to notice that the Dutch love letters...especially consonants.
They don't take time to pronounce all of them, but they seem to throw a few extra ones
in every word that they can. Marteen Van Thiel of the Internet Agave Forum had
suggested we visit Succulenta Nursery www.succulenta-kwekerij.nl (Internet
Explorer only). After getting quite lost in this small town, we used our handy cell
phone to call for directions. It turns out that we were sitting less than a block
away, but on the back side of some larger commercial greenhouses. We were greeted by
the owners, Cok and Ine
Grootscholten. Cok is a retired grower of greenhouse peppers who decided to open a
retirement nursery of cacti and succulents. This was after nearly fatal brain surgery
which put him in a coma for 3 months, and unable to work for 2 years.
Once I mentioned my interest in agaves, we were off to the greenhouses
accompanied by one of Cok's succulent friends Theo van't Walderoeen. We went straight
to the agave section where I finally saw a plant of Agave bracteosa
‘Mediopicta Alba' in person. I have lusted in my heart for this agave since I
found the photo on the Internet several years ago. Nearby was a stunning creamy
white-edge Agave multifilifera which I quickly added to my most coveted list. The
treasures continued as we went through agaves, haworthias, aloes, gasterias, yuccas.
Even though the day was coming to a close, we still hadn't made a dent in his expansive
collection. Cok tells me that he has 10,000 different accessions, which is easy to
believe. This is certainly one of the finest succulent collections in the world and
one that I would encourage anyone to visit if you get the opportunity. I was
fascinated to learn that he propagates all of his gasterias and haworthias from leaf
cuttings. As 5pm approached, we loaded up the trunk with our box of treasures. Thank
goodness, I ordered a full-size car.
As we were ready to leave, Theo offered to take us by his greenhouse which was
on the way to our hotel in Leiden, so off we went. We parked across from an apartment
building along the railroad tracks. From here, we traversed a rough pedestrian bridge
that straddled the canal, entered through a series of three locked gates, then made our
way down a narrow, long weedy walk that separated the railroad tracks above and the
canal below. Finally, we opened the final locked gate to a tiny paradise. The 300
square foot landscape was like a Charleston townhouse garden, beautifully layered
combinations of perennials and woodies. Adjacent to the garden was an old storage
building that Theo had converted into a small studio, complete with all the amenities
of home. At the other end of the garden was his small glass greenhouse which was
filled with agaves. Each agave was perfectly manicured, precisely labeled, and growing
in a perfect size bonsai-style pot. Theo told us that the land was leased from the
railroad along with other residents who used their plots for vegetable gardening or
keeping livestock. Vandals had been a problem for Theo as they had repeatedly broken
out greenhouse panes. When he finally caught the vandals in action, he managed to
throw them all into the canal, and if you saw this canal, you would realize that this
was not a "good thing."
Sunday August 8
On Sunday morning, we were met at our hotel by Luc Klinkhamer
of the CNB Auction (www.cnb.nl/greenteam). I should
mention a bit about how the Dutch horticulture industry works. There are growers,
exports, and auction houses. The growers grow the plants, but rarely export. The
exporters ship the plants, but rarely grow them. The auctions are intermediaries or
brokers who connect growers and exporters. The most familiar auction is Aalsmeer,
where many of the cut flowers are sold. CNB focuses primarily on bulbs and
perennials.
We started the day at Kebra Nursery with Mark van Kestern. Mark grows a number
of newer plants for the exporters, some of which we already had on order. It was great
to see Ruscus aculeatus
‘Christmas Berry'. This fantastic plant is a compact ruscus with tremendous fruit
set, similar to the form that Elizabeth Lawrence used to grow. Sedums were plentiful
here including Mark's introduction, Sedum ‘Crazy
Ruffles', along with a variegated sport of Sedum ‘Matrona' called Sedum ‘Samuel
Oliphant'. Mark was also growing Cypripedium reginae which are being tissue
cultured in Holland. This was our first chance to see Coreopsis ‘Heaven's
Gate' in flower. This impressive introduction from Sunny Border Nursery in the US
is a derivative from Coreopsis ‘Sweet Dreams' with a much darker pink flower, a better
habit, and much better winter hardiness.
Our next stop was the wholesale producer, P.T. Warmerdam
Nursery. We had met the Wamerdams several years earlier at the Raleigh Hosta
Convention. Dick Warmerdam took time to show us around his wholesale production and
hosta display garden. It took longer than normal to travel the ½ mile to the
greenhouses since everyone in the area was heading to the beach, only 2 miles away.
Although we didn't have time to stop, Luc informed us that half of the folks on the
beach are there topless (not just the men), while the completely nude beach is
separated by only a slightly further distance. The beach is separated from the
production fields by large forested sand dunes. The dunes were more extensive before
they were stripped away decades ago to provide soil to expand Amsterdam as well as to
provide more flat growing fields. The average elevation in all of Holland is 37',
which means that many of the growing fields are below sea level. One nursery we
visited appeared flat, but was a staggering 60' below sea level.
Although investigating the beach was tempting, we opted to see more plants. It
was off to Van Noort Nursery, where Marco Van Noort
showed us around. Wholesale production in this part of Holland must be efficient since
the land is quite expensive. In this particular area, land sells for $160,000/acre.
Mark's next door neighbor is the one who found and introduced Echinacea
‘Razzmatazz', so I was finally able to see the plant in person. Also, we were able
to see two US introductions side by side. Both brown leaf Geranium maculatum
cultivars, Geranium ‘Espresso' and Geranium ‘Elizabeth Ann' were being grown. It was
obvious that Geranium ‘Elizabeth Ann' was the better of the two since Geranium
‘Espresso' had already gone dormant while Geranium ‘Elizabeth Ann' still looked
fabulous. We picked up another dark foliage sedum for trial, Sedum
‘Karfunkelstein'...don't you just love those names.
After a quick lunch, we were off to the wholesale field nursery of Kees Van Den
Aardwegh. Dick Van
Aardwegh had the largest planting of Brunnera ‘Jack Frost' that I've ever seen
along with the new solid silver sport, Brunnera ‘Looking
Glass'. Both looked exceptional in the fields. We were also very taken with
silver leaf Pulmonaria
‘Samurai', a cross of Pulmonaria ‘Majeste' x Pulmonaria longifolia var.
cevennensis. Miscanthus sinensis ‘Goldbar' is a new very dwarf Miscanthus ‘Strictus'
type that really looked good. The most exciting plant, however, was the new
white-edged polemonium from the Garden in the Woods. Polemonium reptans
‘Stairway to Heaven' PPAF is a stunning plant that shows what a wimp that
Polemonium ‘Brise D'Anjou' really is. I've sure killed by share of the latter, but
this is a real winner that has got the Dutch growers doing backflips.
From there, we were off to Darwin Plants in Hillengom. Darwin Plants
(Witteman) are one of the largest Dutch exporters of perennials and one of the most
aggressive in acquiring new plants. Salesman Alex Retra, who has visited our nursery
several times, took time from his weekend to show us their shipping facilities as well
as their trial gardens.
Nearby Darwin Plants, we stopped in at the tissue culture lab of Vitro
Westland. If you want a perennial tissue cultured in large numbers, Vitro Westland
is the place. The quantities of hostas being produced here is staggering. It was also
great to see production of Musa ‘Little Prince', a North Carolina introduction from
Randy Salter of Raleigh. We did manage to find three speckled sports of the musa,
which they will evaluate. They had already pulled out three yellow streaked Musa
basjoo from their tissue culture block. I'd have been glad to take care of those, but
they weren't offering. Here we also saw Heuchera ‘Caramel', which Luc told us is a
peachy-orange leaf hybrid with Heuchera villosa. Heuchera hybrids with Heuchera villosa
are particularly good in warm, humid climates, so this one goes on my list.
Luc joined us for a wonderful dinner and persuaded me to try Carpaccio (an
appetizer of ham, cheese, and nuts). Being some of my favorite foods, I indulged only
to find out later that night that raw meat and my stomach were not the best of
friends.
Monday August 9
On Monday morning, we visited the Hobaho auction
house in Lisse (www.hobaho.nl).
A Dutch flower auction house is reminiscent of a visit to Wall Street...albeit
horticultural. Traders were gathered around in glass-walled offices discussing plants
and plant prices. The center of the auction house is a large glass-walled refrigerated
room with display table of plants which growers have for sale or just for show. The
plants are brought in fresh every Monday and judged by a panel of local experts. The
first plant I saw in the display area was a pot of Eucomis ‘Sparkling Burgundy'...a
Plant Delights introduction. There was also a superb pink flowered form of Eucomis
pole-evansii (syn: punctata). Nearby was a species that I had not ever seen, Eucomis
vandermerwei. This dazzling dwarf species was composed of very flat, heavily
ruffled leaves that were covered in large purple spots. This is truly the most amazing
of the eucomis species and a plant that would start our search for the day. There was
a tremendous number of obscenely large-flowered cut gladiolus is the display room. We
found out later that Hobaho also has a breeding program for cut glads and cut
lilies.
Our guide for the day was Eric Breed.
Eric's brother worked at NCSU in the 1980s with Dr. Gus DeHertogh in the bulb research
program. Eric's father, retired from Hobaho, reportedly has the largest private bulb
collection in Holland according to my friend Brent Heath.
As we headed out on our journey for the day, I asked Eric about the problem
with viruses on Dutch bulbs...a common problem associated with loss of vigor. I
described my frustration acquiring plants such as tigridias which were weak and never
reappeared after producing a small flower the first year. Within a minute, Eric
wheeled down a short drive, stopping at an old pick-up truck. The truck marked the
beginning of a huge field (approximately 10+ acres) of tigridias in
full flower. As we queried the owner of the field, F. HA Vaneuwijk and Sons, he
explained that all of his tigridias are seed grown and not produced by division. The
flowers were indeed huge and the plants showed no obvious symptoms of virus. Most of
the rows were segregated by color...yellow, white, pink, and even a few rows of mixed
colors. This was a exciting find if we can get these exceptional bulbs into the
US.
From the tigridia field, we had a very short drive to the KAVB trial site.
This secure site is where all new dahlia cultivars are examined to make sure they are
unique and worthy of registration. Also, there was a huge block of dahlia whose names
are confused in the trade...wrong name with the wrong plants or two plants sold under
the same name. A panel of dahlia experts comb the blocks and write up their findings
to make sure growers sell their plants under the proper name. This was great news,
since the reputation of the Dutch growers is that they really don't care about proper
names. What we quickly found is that it is only a few of the bottom-end growers are
the source of most nomenclatural problems.
Around the corner, we pulled into the Hobaho breeding fields. Since Hans
breeds lilies, he was amazed by the lily breeding program. Oriental lilies, Oriempets,
Asiatic, trumpet types, and longiflorum x candidum hybrids were in full flower in 500'+ long rows.
Their goal is to produce shorter, more compact plants with obscenely huge flowers.
There is no doubt that the breeding program was quite a success. Hans even spotted a
seedling oriental lily with white-edged
leaves. The breeders explained that they threw several of these away each year,
but despite this, they couldn't give the plants away. For a mere 10,000 Euros, they
would be glad to sell us the variegated lily. As tempting as it was, we
passed.
Adjacent to the lily plot were acres of
gladiolus. We met Cathy Osselton,
the gladiolus breeder from Hobaho, who explained her breeding goals. I was curious
about the winter hardiness of the glads, but we were quickly told that hardy glads are
selected against in Holland. If the gladiolus are winter hardy, any pieces that remain
in the field will contaminate the next years plantings. I spent quite a while trying
to convince Eric and Cathy that a line of winter hardy gladiolus would be quite popular
in the US. We'll see if they took the hint.
Eric had made some calls and located the eucomis grower who had displayed the
plants we saw, so off we went. After a short drive, we pulled into a small field with
several long rows of eucomis in flower. Indeed, here were the Eucomis vandermerwei for
which I'd been searching along with rows of several other more common species. After a
little photographing and quite a bit of drooling, we wandered over to the nursery
office to find the owner, Chris vd Salon. Chris took us out into his breeding fields
where he is actually making hybrids with Eucomis vandermerwei. The hybrids were even
more stunning than the species...short ruffled dark purple leaves on nearly flat
plants...oh my! I can see a bright future for these plants as soon as he begins to
release his new hybrids.
Next, we were off to the backyard nursery of Nick Dames. Nick is a former
resident of South Africa and has begun production of several species of Moraea and some
other bulbs to see which will be of interest to the export market. We ended our day at
the CNB trial garden for Dahlias and Zantedeschia. I had been looking for new and
better purple foliage dahlias and was I ever in for a surprise. There is now an entire
series of "Bishops", all with dark foliage and superb flowers. Be on the look out for
Dahlia ‘Bishop of York', ‘Bishop of Leicester', ‘Bishop of Oxford', ‘Bishop of
Canterbury', ‘Bishop of Lancaster', and ‘Bishop of Buckland.' The great thing is that
this isn't all of the new dark foliage dahlias. The "Happy" series of dahlias have as
dark or darker foliage than the "bishop" series and are much shorter. Keep your eyes
out for the Dahlia ‘Happy Single', ‘Happy Romeo',
‘Happy First Love, and ‘Happy Single Date', to mention but a few.
The zantedeschia trials were equally as exciting. I thought Zantedeschia
‘Schwarzwalder' (Black Forest TM) had the darkest flower until I saw Zantedeschia ‘Black
Star'...black flowers, black stems, and green leaves edged in black. After all
this plant excitement, it was back to the hotel to wash and prepare our first box of
plants for a phytosanitary certificate and shipment. Sometime in the wee hours of the
morning, the plants were finally ready for their journey back to the US. We did note
on our late night washing nights that Dutch television is quite a bit more permissive
than US television. It was common to find very explicit "R-rated" movies playing on
the standard channels.
Tuesday August 10
We dropped off the plants for shipment and then headed off on our journey to
the East. We had been watching the weather and were expecting the weather to turn
bad. It seems that the hurricane that had graced North Carolina just before we left
the US had made its was across the Atlantic and was now bringing a much needed rain to
parched Europe. A short 1.5 hour drive took us in the town of Wageningen and the home
of Wilbert
Hetterscheid. Wilbert is known to aroid lovers as the guru of the genus
Amorphophallus. We first stopped by his home, where he and his family had moved just a
couple of months earlier when he took on the job as director of the Wageningen Botanic
Garden (http://www.dpw.wa
geningen-ur.nl/biosys/sectiebottuinen_uk.html). The Wageningen Botanic Garden had
been sadly neglected as we witnessed when we arrived. The intact outdoor plantings
consist of a woody plant collection focusing on the malus family. Inside the
conservatory, Wilbert described it as a second-growth tropical forest...a fancy word
for old and overgrown. To one of the side of the main conservatory were smaller
greenhouses which housed research plants. We spent the majority of our visit looking
through Wilbert's tuberous aroid collection. Wilbert is known throughout the aroid
world for having the largest collection of Amorphophallus species (132) of anyone in
the world. After oohing and aahing over the collection, it was off to lunch at a
nearby café. The food was wonderful and the view overlooking the Rhine River was
stunning. It was an enjoyable lunch except for the battle with the hoards of pesky
yellow jackets. Instead of enjoying a relaxing lunch, we looked more like King Kong
atop the Empire State building, as we swatted away our uninvited guests. Wilbert
explained that this had been a particularly bad year for yellow jackets.
After we dropped Wilbert off at home, we were off for the short 30 minute drive
to de Hessenhof in Ede, the garden and nursery of Hans Kramer.
Although you rarely hear of de Hessenhof (www.hessenhof.nl) in the US, we had been warned that
this was the top specialty nursery in Holland. Hans Kramer is widely regarded as the
top hellebore breeder in continental Europe and his hellebore festival in February
attracts over 7,000 visitors. Although we arrived with very high expectations, we were
not disappointed. The nursery is only open three days each week, while Hans and his
small staff propagate plants and maintain the
gardens during the other days. Although it was raining now and this was not an
open day, Hans had agreed to allow us to visit. As we talked, we found that he had
visited Plant Delights nearly 11 years earlier..a delightful coincidence.
It's hard to remember all the plant highlights but the yellow foliage Polygonatum
odoratum or the branched Polygonatum multiflorum were high on the list. I was also
particularly taken with one of Hans' introductions, the gold foliage Geranium ‘Blue
Sunrise'. Sedum telephium
‘Lac‘doo', which Hans collected in the South of France was also quite charming. We
left with far too many plants, but no where near enough time to thoroughly explore the
entire garden. De Hessenhof is high on the list for a return visit.
By now, night was falling along with the rain, so we made our way to the
southeast in search of our hotel in Arnhem. We arrived to find a beautiful old town
and an equally aged hotel. Our hotel, the Best Western in Arnhem got off to a bad
start with their inability to give coherent directions...not a language problem.
Fortunately, after enough driving around downtown, we finally stumbled on the hotel.
Then came our next surprise...the hotel's definition of a single bed.. Our
reservations had clearly been made for two people and two beds...simple, right? We
opened the door and found one bed and a tiny room with barely enough room to stand.
After a trip back to the front desk, we were given a slightly larger room, again with
one bed. On my third trip to front desk to try and explain that I needed two beds, the
desk clerk finally explained that what seemed like one bed was actually two single beds
under the same covers. I'm going to skip the next exchange in case there are children
reading this. We finally got an acceptable room where there was enough room to
separate the beds and still stand. The only parking lot was a narrow, dark alley
behind the hotel which could only accommodate a small fraction of the hotel guests.
Guess what...no elevator from the parking lot to the first floor. After lugging our
luggage to the lobby, we then had to walk to the other end of the lobby to get to the
elevator. This ancient elevator made those in remote parts of China look modern.
Arriving on the fourth floor, we had to climb additional stairs to get to the rooms.
Did I mention that the room had no air conditioning and it was over 90 degrees outside?
We tried opening the windows only to find the trains running past our room made heavy
duty ear plugs necessary. Our room did come with a fan, which of course was plugged
into an outlet that shut off when you cut the room lights out for the night.
Unbeknownst to us, we were staying at a masterpiece of 18th century Polish engineering.
We dared not eat at the hotel restaurant after the adventure checking in, but
fortunately found a plethora of marvelous eateries less than a block from the hotel.
After dinner, it was back to the parking lot for a midnight run of barerooting our
treasures from De Hessenhof. Did I mention that the only light in the parking lot was
on a motion sensor. After cleaning every two plants, we would have to run to the end
of the parking lot to continually trigger the light. A large construction project
adjacent to our hotel gives hope that a more modern hotel may someday grace downtown
Arnhem.
Wednesday August 11
In pouring rain, we drove north 1.5 hours to the town of Dalfsen and the garden
and nursery of Coen Jansen.
It's still raining when we arrived - 15" in all according to Coen. I will admit to my
curiosity meeting a Dutchman named Coen (pronounced Coon). Usually rural North Carolina
is the only place you find folks with such a name. Coen was absolutely delightful as
we sat in his visitor center
and chatted while waiting for the rain to slow. After about 30 minutes the rain ended
and the water table in the flooded nursery beds and walkways begin to subside. The
only other visitor who showed up during the downpour was from the Göteborg Botanic
Garden in Sweden. We all had a wonderful chat before we all headed into the nursery
beds to being shopping. Coen's nursery was a good bit smaller than De Hessenhof, but
was also filled with wonderful perennial treasures. Some of Coen's introductions
include Geranium ‘Chocolate Candy', Aster ‘Lady in Black', Pulmonaria longifolia
‘Ankum', and Geranium sanguineum ‘Ankum's Pride'. Two reportedly clumping forms of
macleaya, Macleya cordata
‘Spetchley Ruby' and Macleya ‘Ceyledon Ruffles' caught my eye, as did Coen's
introduction, Eupatorium purpureum
‘Ankum's August'. After several hours of enjoying the gardens as well as shopping,
it was time to depart to the south for our four hour journey south to Belgium.
We got close to our destination for the night, the town of Geel, Belgium (just
across the border), before getting completely lost. Did I mention that the road signs
only give directions to towns and not the number of the highway. For someone used to
finding highway numbers on signs, this does tend to complicate matters. After stopping
to ask directions, we finally arrived at 5:30pm at the garden of Jos van
Roosbroeck. We had found Jos's name on the Internet as having the best collection
of agaves in Europe. The centerpiece of the front garden is a large Sequoiadendron
giganteum ‘Pendula' arching over the driveway, in soft contrast to the spininess of the
rest of the plants. The well manicured garden expanded out from the driveway with an
array of planted yuccas including some obvious interspecific hybrids. The yuccas that
particularly caught our eye were two different clumps labeled Yucca ‘Bright Edge'. One
was similar to the plant sold in the US, and the other a much tighter clump with a
different growth habit. Just off the front drive were huge 10 gallon pots, each filled
with a specimen agave. As we traversed the small path connecting the front yard to the
back, the area opened onto a large patio with hundreds more
pots of agaves. Agaves in every shape, color, and size. Jos explained that he had
all of the agaves ever published except for 5 species.
I was also particularly interested in his yucca collection. Jos had 3
different variegated cultivars of Yucca gloriosa and 3 different center variegated
forms of Yucca aloifolia. After several hours of agave overdose, we felt it was time
to leave Jos to eat his dinner while we were off to find our hotel. Fortunately, our
hotel, the Vivaldi in Geel was only a few miles away. We checked in and then spent a
few minutes checking the Internet connection in the lobby to find the status of the two
hurricanes that were headed to Raleigh. We opted for dinner at the hotel, since we had
driven so much during the day and sat down at one of the many outdoor tables. After
waiting for any sign of service while all the tables filled, it became clear that after
40 minutes, we would likely starve before served. Off we went to explore other dining
options. Fortunately, less than an mile away, we stumbled on a very fancy Chinese
restaurant. I couldn't imagine while the hotel restaurant was filled while this
delightful Chinese restaurant near empty. Oh well, there loss was our gain.
Thursday August 12
We were off to south again in the morning to La Hulpe, a small town just south
of Brussels. In late morning, we arrived at the garden of Guy (pronounced Gee)
and Liliane Gusman. The Gusmans are the authors of the recently published book,
Arisaemas. Guy and Liliane are both physics teachers (Guy at the college level and
Liliane at a high school) who fell in love with plants...particularly arisaemas. The
Gusman garden is located in a residential area, but surrounded by a tall fence to keep
the garden private. Inside, we found a peaceful oriental
style garden and house, landscaped with rare perennials from around the world.
Despite the drizzle, we had a marvelous time exploring the garden and discussing
plants. It was obvious from the plants being grown here that we were now in a zone 7a
climate...slightly warmer winters than the nursery production area near Boskoop,
Holland.
Guy and Liliane later took us to gardens of their friends, the Balis's. Jan
Balis's sun and shade rock garden was
filled with one treasure after another...a delightful place to visit. Down the road, we
stopped at the remarkable 1.5 acre garden
of Francine Riez.
The well laid meandering paths made the garden seem more like10 acres...a virtual
treasure trove of rare woodies and perennials. This well designed and maintained
garden put most public gardens to shame. Francine's garden has deservedly been
featured in a number of European magazines and books.
After a wonderful dinner with the Gusmans, it was off to our nearby hotel Le Lido on
the scenic Lake Genval for a long night of plant cleaning and labeling.
Friday August 13
Not long after we departed La Hulpe to the north to get on the loop around
Belgium, traffic came to a standstill. For nearly 1.5 hours, we crept along, finally
realizing that there was no accident, only more traffic than the roads can handle.
This was vacation month in Europe and many folks were just returning from vacations in
the south of France.
In the pouring rain, we finally arrived at the National Botanic
Garden of Belgium (www.br.fgov.be) in the town of Meise, just north of
Brussels. We had corresponded with Frieda Billiet,
Curator of Indoor Collections, whom I had met years earlier at the International Aroid
Conference in St. Louis. We spent most of our time in the greenhouses because of the
weather; first in the public display houses, then in the collections area. You could
tell that there wasn't large amounts of money being poured into the botanic garden.
Many main pathways were washed out gravel walks and the production greenhouses were
dilapidated to the point that some of the ranges had even been abandoned. Collections
of new taxa had also been suspended for several years due to their inability to
maintain additional plants due to staff cuts. Despite their budget constraints, an
amazing collection of plants still remain and are maintained in very good condition.
Specialty collections include succulents,
begonias, bromeliads, gesneriads, coadiums, and much more. Frieda is nearing
retirement and one can only hope that the gardens hire someone with her knowledge and
determination to maintain the collections.
After lunch, we spent a few minutes outdoors between rain showers seeing what
we could of the outdoor displays. A stop in their gift shop found an amazing selection
of gardening books for sale. We found virtually every book that Timber Press sells
including my own, So You Want to Start
a Nursery...a nice surprise.
From here, it was off on the 1.5 hour drive to the west to visit was had been
described as Mr. Hosta of Belgium. We finally arrived at the garden of Danny Van
Eechaute. Danny's small garden was literally so packed with hostas that there was
little room to walk. Virtually every hosta that exists were there...some planted and
others in large containers since planting space had long since disappeared. Not only
did Danny have hostas that are on the market, but he had hybrids that had not yet been
released along with many of his own hybrids. If you get to Belgium and want to talk
hosta, be sure to give Danny a call. His website is www.hostacollectie.be The most exciting hostas
was a sport of Hosta ‘August Moon' with the same pattern of Hosta ‘Tattoo'. We finally
tore ourselves away for the drive to Breda for the night.
Breda is just over the Belgium/Holland border in Holland. The drive was most
eventful, both for the pouring rain and for the convoluted system of roads around the
town of Antwerpen. I have no doubt that we made at least three complete circles to
make our way around Antwerpen. We were so starved after all our driving that we
stopped in a small neighborhood eatery for dinner. While most of what we saw wasn't
recognizable, it all looked good. We settled for a delicious Binky Burger...watch out
McDonalds. After we finally found and checked into the hotel, we started on another
long night cleaning plants. Fortunately, it was pouring rain and we were able to
bareroot plants in the parking lot tree islands and wash the roots in the parking lot
puddles. Okay, it was cold and wet, but it sure beat clogging up hotel toilet with
soil.
Saturday August 14
For our final day, we departed Breda for the 1.5 hour trip north to Rotterdam
to visit the Arboretum
Trompenburg (www.trompenburg.nl). We were met by the garden
director Gert Fortgens and his wife Bernadette. Gert formerly worked at the Boskoop
Experiment Station and is responsible for several plant introductions, Agastache ‘Blue
Fortune', Buddleia ‘Pink Delight' and Buddleia ‘Summer Beauty'. We spent most of the
morning with Gert and Bernadette exploring the
garden. Originally started in 1820, Arboretum Trompenburg was purchased by J. van
Hoey Smith and turned into a conifer collection. To make the garden more interesting
to a wider range of people, Gert has installed perennials throughout the garden. The
transformation is amazing, and I would certainly rank this among my all-time favorite
botanical gardens.
There were so many highlights of the garden, it's hard to mention them all, but
there were some very cool yuccas. One seventy-year old patch of a suckering blue form
of Yucca
filamentosa was 100' long x 20' wide. Another huge trunked yucca appeared to be a
hybrid of Yucca recurvifolia x gloriosa. The alphabetically arranged hosta walk was
quite nice as was Gert's huge collection of ligustrums..probably the largest in the
world. After finishing a quick tour around the arboretum, it was off to the Fortgens
home for lunch.
From here, we wanted to stop by Marco Fransen's nursery again on the way back
to Amsterdam. Since Marco was now back from vacation, Gert wanted to visit as well, so
Hans rode with Gert and I followed with Bernadette. About 10 minutes before arriving
at Marco's, my rental car mysteriously died in the middle of the highway. We were able
to coast into the median, where we called ahead to let Gert and Hans know what had
happened...never expect plant people to stop when plants are calling. The wrecker
arrived about 1.5 hrs after our call to the rental car agency. By this time Gert had
dropped Hans off at Marco's and returned to check on our status. The towing service
was based near the Fortgens home, so we backtracked, picked up a new car and headed off
again to Marco's nursery. I finally arrived, but after my three hour car ordeal, only
had time to say hello before departing to our hotel in Amsterdam.
After checking into our hotel, the Radisson Amsterdam, near the airport, it was
time for dinner. I wondered why I had been able to get such a good deal at the hotel
and the answer was obvious...they charge for everything. Parking was 15 Euros,
breakfast was 19 Euros, and using the Internet was 20 Euros per hour. Fortunately, we
found an office building next door for free parking and spied a McDonalds nearby for
breakfast. We had heard that Mary Walters of Walters Gardens in Michigan was in town,
so we had set up a rendevous for dinner. It is always great to have time to compare
notes and talk new plants. After dinner, another long night awaited as we completed
the final plant prep and paperwork for getting a phytosanitary certificate. Sunday
morning, we were off with our plants following soon behind us. The plants are now
recovering from their trip home and hopefully a large number of them will survive and
turn out to be great additions to American gardens.
-tony
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.jpg "Epimedium wushanense (Wushan Fairy Wings)")
