Thijsse's Hof

Thijsse's Hof is a delightful small example of a heem park with a large variety of native wildflowers displayed in various natural settings, like woodland, shrubs, dunes and marshland. It is located in the dunes near Bloemendaal and is named after the famous ecologist, botanist, and gifted popularizer of natural history, Jac. P. Thijsse (1865-1945). The panorama shows the Onkruidakker (Weeds field).
Thijsse received the garden in 1925 as a gift from his friends on his 60th birthday. Initially an old potato field of about two hectares surrounded by some coppice, it was turned into a heem garden under his direction. The garden became an immediate success and was frequented by generations of school children. Today the foundation Stichting Thijsse's Hof sees to it that the garden continues to function as intended by Thijsse, e.g., hundreds of children from local schools visit the Hof four times a year to experience the turning of the seasons. More information (in Dutch) can be found on http://www.thijsseshof.nl
An interesting study by Jan Woudstra of Thijsse's influence on Dutch landscape architecture appeared in volume 18 of the series Dumbarton Oaks Colloquium on the History of Landscape Architecture (1997, Dumbarton Oaks, Trustees for Harvard University, Washington D.C.). An e-text of this study can be found on http://www.doaks.org/etexts.html

Europe / Netherlands

Lat: 52° 24' 21.6" N
Long: 4° 36' 43.2" E

→ maps.google.com [EXT]

Precision is: Medium. Nearby, but not to the last decimal.

Nikon D70 + Nikkor 10.5mm F/2.8 G, 1/500 sec, F/10, ISO 200.
Photoshop CS2 ACR, PTGui 5.8, Pano2QTVR 1.2.7 (16-bit TIFF)