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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...
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Strawberry Tree


Since moving to Washington, I have discovered a great number of new trees. One of my favorites is the Strawberry Tree (Arbutus unedo). It is a four-season tree with semi-glossy evergreen leaves and lovely mahogany bark. In autumn, clusters of white flowers appear, bearing a resemblance to Lily-of-the-Valley flowers. And then there are the little fruits, which resemble strawberries that appear at the same time as the flowers. I am not sure why, but I have only seen a few fruits on ours. I don't know if birds are getting them before I see them or what happens. The fruits are said to be edible but not very tasty (to humans).

This year, our tree is loaded with flowers, the most I've ever seen. Bees absolutely love it and so do the hummingbirds. The flowers usually continue to appear straight through winter, and it can be blooming even during the coldest periods of winter.

Aside from the fact that I have not seen much of the colorful fruits, the major negative note is the fact that the limbs seem to break easily. We have had breakage during two big snowfalls, the worst happening last winter and resulting in a big chunk of the middle of the tree leaving an ugly hole. I pruned the damaged branches back and it is slowly filling back in.

This is a Mediterranean-climate loving tree and it does well in dry summers. It doesn't mind water either and ours get regular watering. 



Text and photos by Phillip Oliver, Dirt Therapy
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  1. Kris PetersonOctober 30, 2024 at 7:24 PM

    Mine are loaded with blooms this year too but I assumed that was because I delayed my annual tree pruning exercise. Maybe not as you're having the same experience. I don't think even the birds like the fruit ;)

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  2. Hoover BooNovember 6, 2024 at 7:12 PM

    Agree, it is a beautiful tree, the bark, the flowers, everything. Fruit just doesn't taste like anything at all, really. Bland. Once thought to be native to Ireland as well as the Mediterranean, now some think it was introduced to Ireland from the Iberian peninsula as long ago as the Neolithic--4000 years ago.

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