Bulbs
Jacqueline van der Kloet “ sprinkling ” bulbs at the New York Botanical Garden . Photo by : Rob Cardillo . SEE MORE pic OF VAN DER KLOET ‘S GARDENS
It might be a stretch to say that Dutch garden designer Jacqueline van der Kloet saved the tulip , but she has provided the infamous bulb with a much - needed second wind . Van der Kloet does n’t go the traditional route — which is to bombard onlookers with elephantine , monochromatic sweep of a individual cultivar , gaudy burst of color that are gone in a few brief workweek , with only limp foliage leave to show for it . alternatively , she harness the potentiality of tulip , and all spring bulb , by integrating them into more realistic scenes . “ It ’s the bulb ’s salvation , ” she says . “ hoi polloi have to see the magic trick of bulbs . Big pulley-block of tulips are keen for public spaces , but that might not work for the average home . They take to see the possibilities . ”
employ bulbs as part of a larger composition farm painterly results , which score arrant sense coming from a womanhood who dreamed of becoming an creative person . Van der Kloet complete her studies at the Institut Provincial Supérieur d’Horticulture in Brussels and spent six days at a small Dutch firm that designed public gardens . She did n’t sense well-heeled with their conventional approach to garden preparation though , “ I thought it was too stolid , ” she remembers . “ I do n’t like a place with a spot of color here and a spot of color there . ”
Van der Kloet turn her focus to residential gardens and and fructify up her headqurters in Weesp , a townsfolk snug to Amsterdam . There , she take a dissimilar overture in her case garden , which she constitute Theetuin , Dutch for Tea Garden — a reference point to her design to serve potential customer tea before taking them on a tour of her aesthetic .
In classically Dutch fashion , she laid out neat hedge of clipped boxwood , privet , and beech . But within that framework , she blended perennial into ruggedly loose , impressionist blocks , giving Theetuin an ethereal quality , as if a meadow had grown up between hedge . “ Everything is bloom through one another , ” she explains . “ There ’s always something in coloring . The word confetti comes to heed . ”
At van der Kloet ’s home , in Weesp , a give palette of blanched , yellow , and green . picture by : Philippe Perdereau . SEE MORE PHOTOS OF VAN DER KLOET ‘S GARDENS
Theetuin was where she test out combination of colour , texture , drug abuse , and bloom time . At first , she concentrated on mixing shrubs , roses , perennials , and smoke . But when the International Flower Bulb Centre contacted her to write an article about bulbs , she realise she knew very little about sure tulips . They station her a giant shipment to try out , and when she discovered that many would issue forth back year after year — especially if she let the spent foliation die back by nature rather than clipping or braiding it — a love affair was bear .
seniority is a variety of sustainability , and that may be one reason van der Kloet ’s pattern have catch on . She ’s had commissions around the world , including a ten - Akka renovation of beds at Holland ’s Keukenhof , one of the largest public flower garden in the humankind . The projection she ’s done in the United States have met with ring success . She work out alongside her compatriot , garden designer Piet Oudolf , to incorporate bulbs into New York City ’s Battery Park and Chicago ’s Millennium Park , follow by the New York Botanical Garden ’s Seasonal Walk . She also designed and a bulb walkway that include 116,000 bulbs , all is shades of blue , at Martha Stewart ’s Bedford , New York , home . The bulb were distributed by van der Kloet ’s signature “ sprinkle , ” which means handful of electric-light bulb are lovingly tossed onto the ground , to be planted where they light .
What home nurseryman want to be intimate , of trend , is whether they can duplicate such planting in their own backyards . After all , Theetuin ’s testing solid ground maneuver in a dissimilar climate and with fewer of the bulb - crunch rodents that plague so many American garden .
A close - up of the beds at Keukenhof in bloom , in May . Photo by : Jacqueline van der Kloet . SEE MORE PHOTOS OF VAN DER KLOET ‘S GARDENS
As implike and whimsical as her gardens can appear , van der Kloet is full of pragmatic advice :
Getting bulb to coordinate with their repeated pal is a complex undertaking , one that involves consideration of timing , clime , top , and people of color . But van der Kloet is n’t only about spring . To her , it ’s ok if there ’s a abbreviated lull now and then . “ The chain should not always be tense , ” she says . “ A garden necessitate slow segments . ” But of course of study , the show is n’t over with spring , and the layering of subsequent bloom — genus Allium , then gladiolus , then lilies , then dahlias — continue through to the closing of the growing time of year , only to start again the next yr .
“ My plantings have rhythm , ” she say . “ There ’s lots of color , and that colour repeats itself . It ’s through balanced combinations that beau ideal is get to . ”
