This place was part of my life for only one summer, many years ago, yet I remember it well. I was seven years old, a thoroughly urban child, and my mother took me to a friend’s cottage in the countryside for a month. It was a wet August, but the rains came mostly at night…
Clingendael revisited: the Japanese garden in spring
It is May, and the time for my spring visit to the Japanese garden in Clingendael, the old country estate of the van Brienen family. Created by Marguerite van Brienen (aka Lady Daisy), the last real owner of the estate, the garden is now over a century old, and one of the very few original…
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A way to hug a tree
I did hug a tree before, at the time hoping for a connection, some reciprocity, a promise of healing. This time, I hugged a tree without any expectations, just to get closer, to notice little things about it and to observe my sensory reactions. Nothing too "fancy" or esoteric. It is much more rewarding, I…
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The sakura in my care
This year we hosted a small cherry-blossom-viewing party, hanami, for the first time. I had come to think that the cherry tree in our garden (a swaying factor in our decision to buy this house) deserved a celebration. A dedicated party thrown in its honor - despite the tree being, most likely, a Kanzan. My…
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Ten minutes of spring by the parking lot
Amidst the mad rush of a Monday morning school run, I pause. Just around the corner from the parking lot, spring is happening, unnoticed by the harried parents. Oh, the guilty luxury of ten spare minutes. I am greeted by a lawn full of burgundy red and white fritillarias , with their exquisitely patterned snake…
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A short yellow journey
An evocative post from one of my favourite bloggers, on the white blossoms that accompany her walk to school, made me realise to what extent my own school run this time of the year was a yellow affair. Bright splashes of flowering forsythia, kerria and mahonia, daffodils and dandelions punctuate the journey. My daughters love…
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Daphne and Nandina
Like a goddess and a servant in a classical myth, my two main horticultural takeaways from our holiday in England. My move to Holland pre-dates my interest in gardening, so I was not quite familiar with them – both are rare in the urban gardens of the Randstad. Early on during our trip, we visited…
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Allotments in South Holland – the Basics
This time, a post "less lyrical, a bit more local and informational". To those who asked me "How?" since we got the allotment... If you want to try your hand at growing your own food or flowers in South Holland, you don’t necessarily have to live in a house with a large south facing garden…
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An impressionistic postcard from London
It was such an unseasonably warm and sunny patch that it felt surreal. We were in London at the same time last year, late February, and I remember trudging along the Thames in a snowstorm, public transport virtually at a standstill. That memory still fresh in my mind, London looked at once dazzling and dazzled…
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Of blackbird song and February tasks
My very own harbinger of spring is here. Sitting perched on a high branch of the Japanese cherry tree, deep black after the storms, stark against brightening sky. A black bird on a black branch, a perfect kacho-ga in monochrome, singing in the rain. The bird is marking the territory. It must be a young…
My roots and bulbs 