Visiting Trijntje

You have now been introduced to our new teammate Vlad in a number of newsletters, which gave my father a short writing holiday. That was convenient, because he had also visited his customers (read: friends, with the excuse that they were going to talk about work, and once he got home he tried to convince me to become a member of a Champagne club) in England and told them about it too. When we got back to the Netherlands there was plenty to do, because the time to plant flower bulbs had already started here too. You still had a quick look around the garden, but I have to say—I was instructed to include this message in the newsletter: not much longer now, it is almost too cold. Many people have used the past few weeks to really start working on the garden. Including a new good friend of ours, who invited us to her home to help her set up the garden. You have undoubtedly heard of her in a non-flower bulb context: singer Trijntje Oosterhuis.

The first flowers were opened in the kitchen so we could film a short piece about how the flower bulbs arrive—for the full video, check out Trijntje Oosterhuis' Instagram page or Facebook, @trijntjeoosterhuis.

My father had already visited Trijntje's home earlier this year to view the garden. This way, we could choose bulbs that would fit in well with the garden based on her ideas and plans. And then came the fun part: last week the four of us visited her to work in the garden, eat toasted sandwiches and drink chocolate milk with rum. It's not much different than the entire visit was actually just for fun ☺

The Fluwel side of the 'garden team' of this day consisted of, of course, my father, my aunt Paulien, my cousin Pracht (who was lucky: a study day at school) and myself. Together with Trijntje and the three people she herself had invited to our garden day, things went well and we were almost finished before we knew it. We planted a few things in the garden that are really fun to recreate yourself, so I will explain a few parts (which you may have seen in her video by now!) here.

I myself have been working with a mixture of all sorts of different types. We then not only spread this mixture in the flower beds, but also in the grass. In this way, the entire garden gets a cozy atmosphere from very early in the spring—for example, there are Crocuses in it that you can already expect when it is still winter. Distributing bulbs over the normal lawn of your garden may not be the first thing you think of: it still feels a bit like those things have to be in a special place, but of course nothing could be further from the truth. There are no rules for the garden, except those you make yourself, so if you want to mix Hocus Crocus or Crocus tommasinianus through the grass… nothing can stop you!

Making the mixture: Empty all the bags of bulbs you want to use into a large bucket/witches cauldron and mix!

We also filled a lot of flower pots with tulips, daffodils, and other nice things. For example, if you have a very large flower pot with a tree or other perennial in it, you can of course also plant flower bulbs in it: we have done that here a few times, and I think that it will look very nice in the spring, and that the perennials that were already in it will only become more beautiful.

You can dig the flower bulbs scattered in the grass into the ground where they landed; with flower pots you can give free rein to all your creativity and give all the pots a different content, as we have done here!

We have also planted bluebells through the shrubs in the front garden, which, if all goes well, will blend in nicely with the plants that are already there and which can give every front garden a bit of the atmosphere of a fairytale forest.

But after the grass, the flower pots, and a large part of the front garden, it was also time for a break. Eating hot chocolate with rum and toasted sandwiches is just as important, and of course you know who we are visiting: time for my father to demonstrate his dancing talents!

You should also know that a sense of rhythm doesn't necessarily run in the family here... but you can't be an expert on everything, right?

And then the most beautiful part of the garden: that of course belongs to Trijntje's daughter, who has her own large flower box in the garden where she can plant bulbs herself. She turned out to be the natural gardener of the day: she had actually learned everything from my father within five minutes, and then she cheerfully gave her mother tips about where the remaining bulbs could be planted. Unstoppable until everything was well in the ground!

A few varieties that we have used a lot in this garden are the Narcissus Hello Sunshine and Tender Beauty, two very different Narcissus. Hello Sunshine is exactly what people think of when they hear the word Narcissus, so that is always nice to have in the garden. Tender Beauty does something completely different, and certainly people who really don't know that much about flower bulbs, can sometimes be surprised that this is also a Narcissus. I think that most readers of this newsletter can hardly imagine that anymore: I am often surprised myself when friends that I met during my studies don't know that much about flowers, while for me it feels a bit like natural knowledge. Anyway, you know what I mean!

Narcissus Tender Beauty

I hope you have been able to get some inspiration from this garden for your own garden. Have fun planting in the coming period,

Greetings,
Pien

PS: The video can also be seen on our Facebook and Instagram page.