Dutch Garden
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Dutch garden refers firstly to
garden A garden is a planned space, usually outdoors, set aside for the cultivation, display, and enjoyment of plants and other forms of nature. The single feature identifying even the wildest wild garden is ''control''. The garden can incorporate both ...
s in
the Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...
, but also, mainly in the English-speaking countries, to various types of gardens traditionally considered to be in a Dutch style, a presumption that has been much disputed by garden historians in recent decades. Historically gardens in the Netherlands have generally followed trends from neighbouring countries, but from the Early Modern period, Dutch gardens were distinctive for the wider range of plants available over the rest of Europe north of the Alps, and an emphasis on individual specimen plants, often sparsely planted in a bed. In the 17th century and into the 18th, the Dutch dominated the publishing of botanical books, and established the very strong position in the breeding and growing of garden plants, which they still retain. They were perhaps also distinguished by their efficient use of space, and in large examples, the use of
topiary Topiary is the horticultural practice of training perennial plants by clipping the foliage and twigs of trees, shrubs and subshrubs to develop and maintain clearly defined shapes, whether geometric or fanciful. The term also refers to plants w ...
(sculptured bushes and trees) and small "
canals Canals or artificial waterways are waterways or river engineering, engineered channel (geography), channels built for drainage management (e.g. flood control and irrigation) or for conveyancing water transport watercraft, vehicles (e.g. ...
", long thin, rectangular artificial stretches of water. When a distinctively "Dutch" style is claimed, it generally relates to formal styles in large gardens in the latter part of the 17th century, stretching on for a few decades. Because the Netherlands is one of the most densely populated countries, gardens are generally small and because houses are placed right next to each other, there is not very much light available. From the 19th century onwards, Dutch gardens adapted to wider trends, mostly from England and France. Dutch gardens are relatively small, and tend to be "self-contained and introspective", with less linkage to the wider landscape around. From the late 18th century onwards, many or most large gardens in the Netherlands adopted the continental version of the
English Landscape garden The English landscape garden, also called English landscape park or simply the English garden (french: Jardin à l'anglaise, it, Giardino all'inglese, german: Englischer Landschaftsgarten, pt, Jardim inglês, es, Jardín inglés), is a sty ...
style, at least for the areas beyond the immediate vicinity of the house. There are also many
woodland garden A woodland garden is a garden or section of a garden that includes large trees and is laid out so as to appear as more or less natural woodland, though it is often actually an artificial creation. Typically it includes plantings of flowering shrub ...
s from the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The history of "Dutch-style" gardens abroad perhaps begins in the 17th century. On the one hand these have a concentration on the display of specimen plants, initially often imported from the Netherlands. In larger gardens, canals and topiary are often found. However, both of these features may well have been imported to the Netherlands from France, and their appearance in England may have been from either or both countries. Evergreen hedges, rather than those of
deciduous In the fields of horticulture and Botany, the term ''deciduous'' () means "falling off at maturity" and "tending to fall off", in reference to trees and shrubs that seasonally shed leaves, usually in the autumn; to the shedding of petals, aft ...
species such as
hornbeam Hornbeams are hardwood trees in the flowering plant genus ''Carpinus'' in the birch family Betulaceae. The 30–40 species occur across much of the temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere. Origin of names The common English name ''hornbeam' ...
, have also been seen as a characteristic Dutch style since the 17th century.
David Jacques David Lawson Jacques is a British garden historian. He specializes in landscape conservation and the history of 17th and 18th century gardens. Jacques was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2022 Birthday Honours fo ...
, in a paper from 2002 called "Who Knows What a Dutch Garden Is?", concludes that the description was never accurate and "It is time that historians of English garden style eschewed labels such as "Dutch". Rectangular flower gardens, often slightly sunk in tiers, and now heavily planted, were seen as "Dutch". Any garden with large numbers of
tulips Tulips (''Tulipa'') are a genus of spring-blooming perennial herbaceous bulbiferous geophytes (having bulbs as storage organs). The flowers are usually large, showy and brightly coloured, generally red, pink, yellow, or white (usually in warm ...
is also easily labelled as a Dutch garden.


Dutch style

The gardens of
Het Loo Palace Het Loo Palace ( nl, Paleis Het Loo , meaning "The Lea") is a palace in Apeldoorn, Netherlands, built by the House of Orange-Nassau. History The symmetrical Dutch Baroque building was designed by Jacob Roman and Johan van Swieten and was bui ...
, laid out by a pupil of Le Notre under William III, were the largest Dutch version of the
French formal garden The French formal garden, also called the (), is a style of garden based on symmetry and the principle of imposing order on nature. Its epitome is generally considered to be the Gardens of Versailles designed during the 17th century by the ...
, in the style of the
Gardens of Versailles The Gardens of Versailles (french: Jardins du château de Versailles ) occupy part of what was once the ''Domaine royal de Versailles'', the royal demesne of the château of Versailles. Situated to the west of the palace, the gardens cover so ...
; in recent decades they have partly been returned to this style, with elaborately-patterned
parterre A ''parterre'' is a part of a formal garden constructed on a level substrate, consisting of symmetrical patterns, made up by plant beds, low hedges or coloured gravels, which are separated and connected by paths. Typically it was the part of ...
s. But these could not be said to be typical of the Dutch style. Even the grandest Dutch 17th century gardens are small in comparison to their French and English equivalents, but often combine the same set of elements "into happily crowded enclosures, with trellises and hedges and curling
parterre A ''parterre'' is a part of a formal garden constructed on a level substrate, consisting of symmetrical patterns, made up by plant beds, low hedges or coloured gravels, which are separated and connected by paths. Typically it was the part of ...
s mirroring the grills of the popular ironwork gates". Land values were high, and the Dutch felt they suffered from strong winds, as well as too much water, dictating a style with ponds, canals and hedges. Small modern Dutch gardens tend to use many bulbs, and often dwarf
conifer Conifers are a group of conifer cone, cone-bearing Spermatophyte, seed plants, a subset of gymnosperms. Scientifically, they make up the phylum, division Pinophyta (), also known as Coniferophyta () or Coniferae. The division contains a single ...
s in the German style.


Dutch influence on England

In England, Dutch influence became strong for a period after the Dutch King
William III of England William III (William Henry; ; 4 November 16508 March 1702), also widely known as William of Orange, was the sovereign Prince of Orange from birth, Stadtholder of County of Holland, Holland, County of Zeeland, Zeeland, Lordship of Utrecht, Utrec ...
reached the throne in 1689 through his wife; both were interested in gardening.
Westbury Court Garden Westbury Court Garden is a Dutch water garden in Westbury-on-Severn, Gloucestershire, England, southwest of Gloucester. It is a rare survival of seventeenth century garden design and was initially laid out by the owner of Westbury Court, Maynar ...
, now carefully restored to its design around 1700 is perhaps the best example in England of a more native Dutch style for a large house. The restoration at Westbury Court prompted some discussion among English garden historians as to what, if anything, constituted a historical "Dutch garden", and how Dutch the typical features ascribed to them actually were. Christopher Hussey associated the Dutch style not so much with
topiary Topiary is the horticultural practice of training perennial plants by clipping the foliage and twigs of trees, shrubs and subshrubs to develop and maintain clearly defined shapes, whether geometric or fanciful. The term also refers to plants w ...
, regarded as diagnostic by many earlier writers, as with canals, giving Westbury Court as the prime example, observes
David Jacques David Lawson Jacques is a British garden historian. He specializes in landscape conservation and the history of 17th and 18th century gardens. Jacques was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2022 Birthday Honours fo ...
, Similarly
Miles Hadfield Miles Heywood Hadfield (15 October 1903 – 1982) was an English writer on gardening and one of the founders, and the first president, of the Garden History Society. He was awarded the Royal Forestry Society's gold medal and the Royal Horticultur ...
considered that "an essential of Dutch versions of the grand manner was that the ground be tolerably level, with an abundance of water" Later, Hadfield found "not the slightest hint" of a Dutch connection at Westbury Court To some extent calling formal gardens in England "Dutch" avoided the accusation that they were actually in a style that was essentially French, at a time of wars between England and France. Even in England, Dutch artists completely dominated the newly popular genre of paintings and prints of country houses and their gardens from about 1660 to the 1730s. The Dutch garden was the description given to a particular type of rectangular
flower garden A flower garden or floral garden is any garden or part of a garden where plants that flower are grown and displayed. This normally refers mostly to herbaceous plants, rather than flowering woody plants, which dominate in the shrubbery and ...
space, often enclosed within hedges or walls, even if part of a larger garden or parkland. The Dutch version of the
French formal garden The French formal garden, also called the (), is a style of garden based on symmetry and the principle of imposing order on nature. Its epitome is generally considered to be the Gardens of Versailles designed during the 17th century by the ...
, this space would be laid out in a highly cultivated and geometrical, often symmetrical, fashion, shaped by plantings of highly coloured flowers, originally very well-spaced by modern standards, and edged with box or other dense and clipped shrubs, or low walls (sometimes in geometrical patterns), and sometimes, also, with areas of artificial water, with fountains and water butts, which were also laid out in symmetrical arrangements. A particular Dutch feature is the ''koepel'' or
pavilion In architecture, ''pavilion'' has several meanings: * It may be a subsidiary building that is either positioned separately or as an attachment to a main building. Often it is associated with pleasure. In palaces and traditional mansions of Asia ...
, generally built of brick and raised up to give a view of the garden. Westbury Court and
Hampton Court Hampton Court Palace is a Grade I listed royal palace in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames, southwest and upstream of central London on the River Thames. The building of the palace began in 1514 for Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, the chief ...
have two-storey examples, the latter the
Banqueting House In English architecture, mainly from the Tudor period onwards, a banqueting house is a separate pavilion-like building reached through the gardens from the main residence, whose use is purely for entertaining, especially eating. Or it may be buil ...
designed by William Talman for William III, overlooking on one side a row of three rectangular
garden room In gardening, a garden room is a secluded and partly enclosed space within a garden that creates a room-like effect. Such spaces have been part of garden design for centuries. Generally they are regarded as different from terraces and patios just ...
s for flowers, and on the other the
river Thames The River Thames ( ), known alternatively in parts as the The Isis, River Isis, is a river that flows through southern England including London. At , it is the longest river entirely in England and the Longest rivers of the United Kingdom, se ...
. Later, in England the term was used for flower gardens that are heavily planted within a geometric frame. The flower beds and areas of water would be intersected by geometrical path patterns, to make it possible to walk around the garden without damaging any of its features. An example, not now planted in an authentic style, is to be found adjacent to
Kensington Palace Kensington Palace is a royal residence set in Kensington Gardens, in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea in London, England. It has been a residence of the British royal family since the 17th century, and is currently the official L ...
, due south of the orangery. The Privy Garden at Hampton Court Palace has been restored in recent decades in a more authentic version of the style around 1700, when it was planted under William III. Unlike Louis XIV's much larger
Gardens of Versailles The Gardens of Versailles (french: Jardins du château de Versailles ) occupy part of what was once the ''Domaine royal de Versailles'', the royal demesne of the château of Versailles. Situated to the west of the palace, the gardens cover so ...
, this was only accessible to a small group of courtiers. Another example, less ambitious, is at
Clandon Park Clandon Park House is an early 18th-century grade I listed Palladian mansion in West Clandon, near Guildford in Surrey. It stands in the south east corner of Clandon Park, a agricultural parkland estate which has been the seat of the Earls of ...
in
Surrey Surrey () is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in South East England, bordering Greater London to the south west. Surrey has a large rural area, and several significant urban areas which form part of the Greater London Built-up Area. ...
. The Dutch garden, with its geometry and formality, was in opposition to the
cottage garden The cottage garden is a distinct style that uses informal design, traditional materials, dense plantings, and a mixture of ornamental and edible plants. English in origin, it depends on grace and charm rather than grandeur and formal structure. Ho ...
, which in its modern form is characterised by grass, winding and asymmetrical paths (if any) and a blurring of the lines between flowers and grass by allowing shrubs to grow over flower bed boundaries. As the
English landscape garden The English landscape garden, also called English landscape park or simply the English garden (french: Jardin à l'anglaise, it, Giardino all'inglese, german: Englischer Landschaftsgarten, pt, Jardim inglês, es, Jardín inglés), is a sty ...
style took hold in the mid-18th century, the label began to be applied in a "derogatory" sense to formal gardens in general, in the "distortions of polemicists". Francis Coventry, a clergyman and writer, in his 1753 magazine piece on "Strictures on the Absurd Novelties introduced in Gardening" said
William Kent William Kent (c. 1685 – 12 April 1748) was an English architect, landscape architect, painter and furniture designer of the early 18th century. He began his career as a painter, and became Principal Painter in Ordinary or court painter, but ...
had rescued English gardens from "Dutch absurdity". In 1755
Richard Owen Cambridge Richard Owen Cambridge (14 February 1717 – 17 September 1802) was a British poet. Life Cambridge was born in London. He was educated at Eton and at St John's College, Oxford. Leaving the university without taking a degree, he took up residen ...
wrote that the "Dutch" style had "for more than half a century deformed the face of nature in this country". In 1806,
Humphry Repton Humphry Repton (21 April 1752 – 24 March 1818) was the last great English landscape designer of the eighteenth century, often regarded as the successor to Capability Brown; he also sowed the seeds of the more intricate and eclectic styles of ...
, the leading garden designer of the day, said the "Dutch style" lasted from the accession of William III in 1689 for half a century, to be replaced by the "English style" of
Capability Brown Lancelot Brown (born c. 1715–16, baptised 30 August 1716 – 6 February 1783), more commonly known as Capability Brown, was an English gardener and landscape architect, who remains the most famous figure in the history of the English la ...
"to restore the ground to its original shape".Jacques(2017), 2-3


Garden of Holland

The small, fenced, Garden of Holland, defended by the
Dutch Maiden The Dutch Maiden (Dutch: ''Nederlandse Maagd'') is a national personification of the Netherlands. She is typically depicted wearing a Roman garment and with a lion, the Leo Belgicus, by her side. In addition to the symbol of a national maiden, t ...
and the Batavian Lion was, and to some extent still is, a popular patriotic metaphor for the independence of the Netherlands, first seen in the late 16th century. It draws from the medieval
Hortus Conclusus ''Hortus conclusus'' is a Latin term, meaning literally "enclosed garden". At their root, both of the words in ''hortus conclusus'' refer linguistically to enclosure. It describes a genre of garden that was enclosed as a practical concern, a majo ...
. Many prints and forms of the
decorative arts ] The decorative arts are arts or crafts whose object is the design and manufacture of objects that are both beautiful and functional. It includes most of the arts making objects for the interiors of buildings, and interior design, but not usual ...
depict it, a few of which have interest from the garden history angle. Where there is a single tree in the garden, it represents the
House of Orange The House of Orange-Nassau (Dutch language, Dutch: ''Huis van Oranje-Nassau'', ) is the current dynasty, reigning house of the Netherlands. A branch of the European House of Nassau, the house has played a central role in the Politics and governm ...
, which often needs re-planting. File:Garden of Holland.jpg, Dutch Maiden in the garden of Holland, 1563, by
Philips Galle Philip (or Philips) Galle (1537 – March 1612) was a Dutch publisher, best known for publishing old master prints, which he also produced as designer and engraver. He is especially known for his reproductive engravings of paintings. Life Gal ...
File:Allegorie op de onbetrouwbaarheid van Spanje en de vrijheid en welstand van de Zeven Provinciën de Hollandse Tuin, RP-P-1887-A-11985.jpg, Allegorical print of 1615; the Spanish come to visit, as the Orange tree slumps over. File:Spotprent met Johan en Cornelis de Witt die als duivels door de lucht vliegen, 1672 Ondersoeckt de Geesten, ofse van den Duyvel syn, of niet (titel op object), RP-P-OB-77.217.jpg, The French invade, 1672–75 File:Penning op het Eeuwfeest van Nederland’s Onafhankelijkheid, objectnr 57937(1).JPG, Medal of 1913, the centennial of the French under Napoleon being expelled.


Flora

Common flowers in the Dutch garden are: *Tulips *
Anemone ''Anemone'' () is a genus of flowering plants in the buttercup family Ranunculaceae. Plants of the genus are commonly called windflowers. They are native to the temperate and subtropical regions of all continents except Australia, New Zealand an ...
s *
Calla ''Calla'' (bog arum, marsh calla, wild calla, squaw claw, and water-arumDickinson, T.; Metsger, D.; Bull, J.; & Dickinson, R. (2004) ROM Field Guide to Wildflowers of Ontario. Toronto:Royal Ontario Museum, p. 62.) is a genus of flowering plant i ...
Lily * Narcissus *
Rose A rose is either a woody perennial flowering plant of the genus ''Rosa'' (), in the family Rosaceae (), or the flower it bears. There are over three hundred species and tens of thousands of cultivars. They form a group of plants that can be ...
s *
Snowdrop ''Galanthus'' (from Ancient Greek , (, "milk") + (, "flower")), or snowdrop, is a small genus of approximately 20 species of bulbous perennial herbaceous plants in the family Amaryllidaceae. The plants have two linear leaves and a single sm ...
s *
Crocus ''Crocus'' (; plural: crocuses or croci) is a genus of seasonal flowering plants in the family Iridaceae (iris family) comprising about 100 species of perennials growing from corms. They are low growing plants, whose flower stems remain undergro ...
es


Noteworthy gardens in the Netherlands

Some noteworthy public Dutch gardens are: *The Keukenhof * Prinsentuin (Groningen) mainly formal garden for an 18th-century palace *Gardens of
Arcen Arcen (; li, Árse) is a village in the Dutch province of Limburg. In 2010, it became part of the municipality of Venlo. Previously, it had been part of the municipality of Arcen en Velden and the seat of the town hall (). In 2001, Arcen had 188 ...
Castle *Gardens of
Oud-Valkenburg Oud-Valkenburg (''English: Old-Falkenburg'') is a village in the Dutch province of Limburg. It is located in the municipality of Valkenburg aan de Geul, and has about 115 inhabitants. Although small, Oud-Valkenburg counts several monuments, among ...
Castle *
Westbury Court Garden Westbury Court Garden is a Dutch water garden in Westbury-on-Severn, Gloucestershire, England, southwest of Gloucester. It is a rare survival of seventeenth century garden design and was initially laid out by the owner of Westbury Court, Maynar ...


Notes


References

* Jacques, David (2002), "Who Knows What a Dutch Garden Is?" ''Garden History'' 30.2, Dutch Influences (Winter 2002:114–130) * Jacques, David (2017), ''Gardens of Court and Country: English Design 1630-1730'', 2017, Yale University Press, * Quest-Ritson, Charles, ''The English Garden: A Social History'', 2003, Penguin, * Uglow, Jenny, ''A Little History of British Gardening'', 2004, Chatto & Windus, {{Authority control Dutch culture Gardens in the Netherlands Types of garden by country of origin