Skip to main content

Featured

The Gardens of Mien Ruys - a book review

I don't know how I missed her, but I was totally unfamiliar with Mien Ruys. A beautiful new book The Gardens of Mien Ruys details her life and work. Born in the Netherlands in 1904, she was the daughter of Bonne Ruys, who founded Moerheim Nursery in 1888. She grew up in a liberal atmosphere and encouraged to learn and study. She found great comfort in the natural world around her and learned all the plants in her father's nursery at a young age. After leaving school at the age of 19, she knew that she wanted to work in the garden center. The Moerheim Nursery, in addition to selling plants, had an on-site design studio where they published a detailed catalog and sold landscape design plans to customers. It was in the design studio where Ruys first began to work and she was soon encouraged to venture beyond her country and study abroad. Her father's connections helped her secure a traineeship with Wallace & Sons Nursery in Tunbridge Wells in England. There, she met Gertr...
4 comments
Read more
Labels

Seeing Yellow

Yellow seems to be the dominant color of early spring. Daffodils, carolina jessamine, witch hazel, Lady Banks rose, forsythia - it seems the list is endless. Here are two yellows that I photographed yesterday. My Lady Banks rose has just started and I will be posting a photo of it later.

Kerria Japonica (also known as Easter Rose) blooms before the leaves appear. It is a graceful and dependable shrub.



Carolina Jessamine is a fast-growing vine that can be used in a variety of ways. I have mine growing on a low picket fence next to my tiny vegetable garden.

Email Post
Labels:

Comments

  1. JonApril 3, 2008 at 11:06 PM

    Phillip,
    Wow! Double wow!! Your two most recent posts with such beautiful photos leave me grasping for just the right superlative adjectives or words to use in my comment. Hmmm..seriously stunning Southern spring snapshots!

    Jon in Vicksburg, Miss. on 4-4-08

    ReplyDelete
  2. RuralityApril 4, 2008 at 5:54 AM

    You must have been reading my mind! I was trying to find the name of that first shrub just yesterday. We visited a garden that had one. It was kind of staked and gathered up around the bottom so that it didn't sprawl, which I thought was interesting too. I love that color yellow best, I think - really eye-catching!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Sh@neyApril 4, 2008 at 5:24 PM

    YOU have some beautiful scenery in your garden...I love the work you have put in...Envy is my sin!...*winks*

    ReplyDelete
  4. Barbee'April 19, 2008 at 2:16 PM

    Phillip, you have such a beautiful garden. All that work shows. I wish I lived in your zone instead of zone 6. You grow some plants I have longed to have.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment