Keukenhof Holland

Keukenhof inspirational gardens
The inspirational gardens at Keukenhof are the ideal place for visitors to not just gaze in admiration but also be inspired and encouraged to use flower bulbs in their own garden.

The seven gardens vary in size and each have their own individual character and theme.

The sizes are based on the average Dutch garden and vary from around 50 to 120 m2. Each garden has a permanent basic framework of trees, shrubs, hedges and wooden walls or fences, but the rest of the planting with  perennials and flower bulbs is changed each year. Besides this, each spring, containers and garden furniture are used to create a totally different character.

The inspirational gardens are occupied by the Van Beieren family. The members of this family represent the target group of the garden’s designer “media and participants”, have their own style “the trend”, and each use the flower bulbs in their own unique way.

The main theme in Keukenhof in 2010 is Russia. The inspiration for two of the gardens comes from this beautiful country.

The gardens are related to the folowing media:

· GardenLlovers’ Garden
· Decking Garden
· Town Garden - De Telegraaf/Vrouw
· Outdoor Room - NC – Russian gardening magazine
· Woodland Garden –Country life
· Round Garden - Mein schöner Garten  -  German gardening magazine
· Patio Garden

The above media use a number of ways to draw attention to the inspirational gardens.

2010 Trends
The turmoil of today’s society means people are looking for a more rural, idyllic and peaceful lifestyle. Authenticity and creativity are high on the agenda. Each garden represents a trend, varying from romantic pastels to colourful folkloristic, powerful deep tints and patterns.

Today’s garden is becoming more and more a part of the indoor space.  Creative home-made objects are playing an increasingly important role, in addition to trendy furniture. People want their garden to reflect their own personality, so they show a preference for hand-made articles.

Novel garden partitioning provides protection and privacy. Ideas for this include outdoor curtains, walls, and semi-transparent fencing, where creativity plays an important role. Dividing the space creates an exciting maze-like or half-open effect. Natural materials such as unfinished wood, felt and wool are used, often in new ways to give a surprising effect.

The idea of country life comes across through the use of  trendy vegetable plots, cottage plants and playful, natural borders.  People are interested in the traditional aspect of flower bulb planting. A conscious choice is made for special varieties of flower bulbs with a traditional appearance.

Max’s Garden Lover’s Garden
A friendly garden with plenty of places to sit, raised borders using recycled wood and and woven spaghetti matting, unusual fencing with vertical planting and a lean-to greenhouse made of recycled materials. Planting in warm, dark colours with yellow accents.

Loes’s Decking Garden
Spacious wooden waterside deck with outdoor curtain as partition. The transparency creates a playful transition between the various areas of the garden and makes the garden appear larger. This effect is repeated in the light and casual, open-structured furniture designed by Jean-Marie Massaud en Gandia Blasco among others. Flowering bulbs in soft pastels.

Ymke’s Town Garden
A modern garden in which oversized images are used to create playful angles. In addition, the plant-like ‘Algues’ by Ronan & Erwan Bouroullec provide an unusual partition which combines well with the Vegetal chairs by the same designers. The colour palette consists mainly of blue tints, with deep purple and red accents.

Ellen’s Outdoor Room
A Russian garden with folkloristic motifs. This garden contains a garden house straight out of a Russian fairy tale that is really something special. And the matryoshkas haven’t been forgotten. A mix of colours is used. Most of the flower bulbs bear Russian names and the black tulip ‘Baba Yaga’ can be seen for the first time in the Netherlands here at Keukenhof.

Thijn’s Woodland Garden
Leafy country garden with modern elements. The round wooden deck in the water can be reached via two steps. The woodland garden looks completely different viewed from the sturdy armchairs on the deck. On the terrace is a solidly built, family-sized table. The plants display strong and sturdy colours with grasses and herbs.

Gerbrand’s Round Garden
A timeless classic garden in rural-chic style with a romantic Oxborough Gazebo.  This garden design makes much use of circles, both in the paving and the borders. Luxurious planting with flowering bulbs in white and soft pastel tints.

Peter’s Patio Garden
Russian theme garden. A mystical garden full of contrast, surrounded by a golden wall and with a gabion filled with beech leaves, birch wood and preserving jars. Raised borders covered in felt.  Surrounded on the outside by a spacious vegetable plot and natural steppe vegetation. 

Colours are intense shades of lilac, purple  and red, with paler  colour accents.


Historical garden
The historical garden is one of the most striking Keukenhof attractions. An oasis that lives and breathes the atmosphere of a historic castle garden. Various collections of historical spring bulbs and tuberous plants are on display, including old tulip varieties from the Hortus Bulborum and 17th-century daffodils. Species that were sometimes cultivated for hundreds of years and are now almost impossible to buy. It is an unknown fact that, in early spring, this is also the warmest spot in Keukenhof, on the benches lining the slate wall.

Clusius at Keukenhof
In our historical garden we have recently added the reconstruction of eight flowerbeds from the oldest Dutch Botanical garden, the Hortus botanicus in Leiden (from 1590). Under the watchful eye of founder Carolus Clusius, albeit in the form of a bust, ancient varieties of tulips and crocus, anemones, fritillaria and lilies are in glorious bloom. A visit to the historical garden is a walk through the highpoints of Dutch flower bulb history.