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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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The Garden House (Devon, England)



The destinations are beginning to blur but looking at the tour guide booklet, I see that we are now in Plymouth. Today, we visited two gardens designed by Keith Wiley. 

The first is The Garden House, where Wiley worked as Head Gardener for 25 years (from 1978-2003). The 10-acre estate was purchased in the 1940s by former Eton schoolmaster Lionel Fortescue and his wife Katherine. It was formerly home to the  vicars of Buckland Monachronum. The Fortescue's renovated the gardens and ran a market garden business and raised cattle. 

The remains of some of the original buildings in the vicarage still stand in the garden and serve as a romantic backdrop in the Walled Garden -








I loved the way they had massed ferns together. Just stunning!





















Surrounding the walled garden and venturing out away from the house are more naturalistic plantings  -












Today, the head gardener is Nick Haworth, who was previously head gardener at Greenway, which we visited earlier. 

Keith Wiley left in 2003 and moved just down the road where he created a new garden and nursery called Wildside. It was our next stop...

(Visited May 13, 2005)

Text and photos by Phillip Oliver, Dirt Therapy
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  1. Kris PetersonOctober 28, 2025 at 4:50 PM

    Fantastic photos, Phillip, although I'm not sure you can beat the one at the top of your post.

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  2. AnonymousOctober 29, 2025 at 7:38 AM

    Stunning photos! And Keith Wiley is such a lovely garden designer. I love his book “Shade: Ideas and inspiration for shady gardens.” Thanks for the morning garden inspiration.

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  3. AnonymousNovember 2, 2025 at 8:10 AM

    The old original buildings with the thatched roof... amazing. There are still tradesmen who have the skill and knowledge to maintain them.
    Chavli

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