By Evelyn Grazini

Square Foot Gardening

Dutch horticultural new sounds, but is it? According to Wikipedia, “Dutch garden differs dense atmosphere and efficient use of space. At the international level, a square foot gardening with tulips is also easily labeled as a Dutch Garden.

Placement of flowers and bushes in the garden of the Dutch non-linear and informal, but effective use of space and light.

Because the Netherlands is one of the most densely populated countries, the gardens are usually small – and because houses are located near each other, there is not much light available. Because of these limitations, clean style design of the garden emerged.

It seems that the Dutch horticulture is not much different than the square foot gardening except that in Dutch horticulture is no little square foot gardening to put plants in. At least that’s what I thought after the first reading online dictionary explanation of a typical Dutch garden.

Nevertheless, Dutch Garden in the Middle Ages (500 – 1550) was more functional than enough. They usually consist of vegetables, fruits and herbs. These gardens were square foot gardening or slightly elongated rectangle, and is usually divided into cross paths with something placed in the center of the cross (as a function of water or wood). This square was divided into smaller space to separate the stands (this is starting to sound familiar yet?)

Classic Dutch Gardens (1630 – 1690) was also a big hit. At this time, gardeners everywhere have begun to include structures in the garden. Dutch classical garden was surrounded by walls and hedges. It was then divided into several mazes, shape and design. Low-growing ornamental plants were used in this period of time, mostly thyme, carnations, daisies and other flowering plants.

Fountains and small water features, as a rule, always used. As a rule, they were somewhat hidden in the flora, that people think that finding something special when they saw them. Sad, as they began to develop and fine works of art.

To date, there are several different plants recommended for the garden, if you’re serious about putting a bit of Dutch culture in your garden, this kind of plants to consider the following questions:

Tulips, anemones, Calla lilies, daffodils, roses, snowdrops, crocuses.

I was surprised to see Rose at the list because my roses tend to grow tall and out of control sometimes. You must remember to select the smaller varieties in order to support the concept of small landscaping space.

I think the biggest Dutch Keukenhof Gardens is a garden in Maastricht, The Netherlands. If you are ever in Holland, is a must see!

Most of the paintings of Dutch Gardens, which I saw, I saw very colorful and that is why they are so popular. In some gardens, there are quite a few flowers to gather in a very small space. Most of them includes several varieties of blue as a separator, making red and yellow really stands out!

After looking at a bunch of pictures Dutch garden – I’m dying to spend some of those blue flowers!

I really do not know where the “informal” part comes from the online description. I think that flowers and plants all carefully plotted to visually attractive Dutch garden. If you take a picture, many of them are doing an excellent picture for over the fireplace.

One possibility is because there are many plants in one space, I’m just not sure, but what I know, that little Dutch garden will be somewhere in our yard this year!