In Search of Great Plants

Holland and Belgium 2004

By Tony Avent
Plant Delights Nursery, Inc.
www.plantdelights.com
9241 Sauls Road
Raleigh, NC 27603
919.772.4794
I had long been trying to find time to visit the Netherlands (Holland) and Belgium and
finally in August 2004, the time arrived. On Thursday afternoon August 5, I departed to
the land of Tulips and Windmills. At my connection in Philadelphia, I met up with fellow
nurseryman Hans Hansen of Shady Oaks Nursery in Minnesota who accompanied me on
the trip. You may find August a strange time to visit Holland, but I intentionally chose
this time of year to focus on perennials and avoid the distractions of tulips, daffodils, and
hyacinths. I hope you enjoy my brief synopsis of our whirlwind tour including 30 stops.

Friday August 7

After a good nights sleep on the plane (just kidding), we arrived at 10am on Friday
morning. The flight was quite smooth as was the rental car pickup and other airport
processing. It was obvious that the Dutch are well prepared for visitors from abroad.
After changing money (the US dollar has sunk against the Euro: 1 Euro= .80 US), we
grabbed our Opel and off we went. FYI, automatic transmission is not a big thing in
Holland. The price for a standard transmission car was $600, while an automatic was
$1400. We had opted for a standard, but were shocked to hop into our vehicle and find
that they had given us an automatic instead at the cheaper price...no complaints.

Our first stop was the nursery of Holland's hosta guru, Marco Fransen of Ter Aar (outside
Boskoop). Marco and his ever expanding young family were on vacation in Croatia...yes,
those Dutch have quite the sense of humor. Marco's dad showed us around the display
garden, the wholesale production fields, and the greenhouses of potted hostas which are
used for on-site retail sales as well as mail-order. Being bordered by a canal (as were
most of the nurseries near Boskoop), they are not able to use many herbicides. We
watched as weeding crews from Poland worked their way though the fields weeding to
the tune of US $20/hour. Fransen Nursery (www.hostakweker.nl) is located in a part of
Holland where the soil is very peat based. This means no equipment in the fields, but they
are able to grow plants such as astilbe, which are difficult on many of the other soil types
in Holland.

Friday afternoon, we visited the nearby nursery of Mark and Rein Bulk in Boskoop. Pat
McCracken of Raleigh had visited a year earlier and was still talking about this wonderful
small wholesale nursery of rare woody plants. Indeed, it was a special collection, both of
potted and field grown specimens including many that I had never before encountered. I
was particularly taken with several mahonias, Mahonia japonica ‘Golddust', Mahonia
bodinieri, and Mahonia longibracteata. Hydrangea macrophylla ‘Jofloma' with it's bright
gold foliage and pure white flowers was also quite stunning. Gold foliage was
particularly attractive in this climate and the bright gold-foliaged Stachyurus praecox
‘Goldbeater' went on my must get list. While the idea of gardening and having a nursery
on a canal sounds appealing, it does have its disadvantages. It seems that nursery thieves
traverse the canals at night, climb into the nurseries and steal plants. Someone had
stopped by Mark's nursery during the winter and cut his Metasequoia ‘Ogon' off at the
ground to use for scion wood. I should mention climate before I get too caught up in
plants. Most of the coastal nursery production areas in west Holland are equivalent to
USDA zone 6b, although temperatures in the 90's are quite the exception. We stayed until
nearly dark, when it was finally time to head to our hotel, the Holiday Inn in nearby
Leiden (Rembrandt's birthplace). Of all the hotels in which we stayed, this was our
favorite. The dinner buffet was quite good, and only when we finished eating did we
realize that it cost us nearly US$50 each. At least the breakfast buffet was included in the
room price along with free in-room high speed Internet.

Saturday August 7

On our second comfortable, but overcast Saturday morning, we arrived at the Boskoop
wholesale nursery of Nico Rijnbeek and Son Nursery (www.rijnbeek.com). Rijnbeek and
Son are both growers and exporters of perennials...a rare combination in Holland. Nico
was just preparing to leave for the ISU (large perennial meeting) in Austria, but still took
time to show us around. We toured the shipping and production areas where both field
grown and potted plants are both produced and shipped. It is fascinating that our native
Phlox paniculatas never look as good in our garden as they do in photos from Holland.
They seem to do a much better job growing many of our US natives that we do in the US.
Nico's nursery must be right on the tourist routes, as boat after boat filled with tourists
went by while we were walking around. The canals serve many other purposes, such as a
source of nursery irrigation, a place to fish, swim, and as a source of drinking water (hope
they clean it well). If you need soil to build or raise a planting bed, just use a bucket to
scoop soil from the canal behind your house. Water shortages are rarely a problem since
pumps in areas with high water tables constantly pump water from growing areas back
into the canals.

Nico next took us across the street to visit his brother-in-law at J. van Zoest Clematis
Nursery. Despite the pouring rain, we enjoyed this truly amazing nursery. Every row was
perfectly maintained, which is almost impossible in a nursery growing vines. We saw an
amazing number of wonderful clematis, especially hybrids with Clematis integrifolia.
Some of my favorites are Clematis ‘Hendryetta', Clematis ‘Hendersonii', Clematis ‘Blue
Pirouette',and Clematis ‘Fascination'. Nearby were pots of the amazing Agapanthus
‘White Heaven' with massive flower heads nearly 1' across....looks like an agapanthus
with implants...must get this one.

For our final stop of the day, we journeyed to the small town of Honselersdijk. We have
already begun to notice that the Dutch love letters...especially consonants. They don't
take time to pronounce all of them, but they seem to throw a few extra ones in every
word that they can. Marteen Van Thiel of the Internet Agave Forum had suggested we
visit Succulenta Nursery www.succulenta-kwekerij.nl (Internet Explorer only). After
getting quite lost in this small town, we used our handy cell phone to call for directions. It
turns out that we were sitting less than a block away, but on the back side of some larger
commercial greenhouses. We were greeted by the owners, Cok and Ine Grootscholten.
Cok is a retired grower of greenhouse peppers who decided to open a retirement nursery
of cacti and succulents. This was after nearly fatal brain surgery which put him in a coma
for 3 months, and unable to work for 2 years.

Once I mentioned my interest in agaves, we were off to the greenhouses accompanied by

one of Cok's succulent friends Theo van't Walderoeen. We went straight to the agave
section where I finally saw a plant of Agave bracteosa ‘Mediopicta Alba' in person. I
have lusted in my heart for this agave since I found the photo on the Internet several
years ago. Nearby was a stunning creamy white-edge Agave multifilifera which I quickly
added to my most coveted list. The treasures continued as we went through agaves,
haworthias, aloes, gasterias, yuccas. Even though the day was coming to a close, we still
hadn't made a dent in his expansive collection. Cok tells me that he has 10,000 different
accessions, which is easy to believe. This is certainly one of the finest succulent
collections in the world and one that I would encourage anyone to visit if you get the
opportunity. I was fascinated to learn that he propagates all of his gasterias and
haworthias from leaf cuttings. As 5pm approached, we loaded up the trunk with our box
of treasures. Thank goodness, I ordered a full-size car.

As we were ready to leave, Theo offered to take us by his greenhouse which was on the
way to our hotel in Leiden, so off we went. We parked across from an apartment building
along the railroad tracks. From here, we traversed a rough pedestrian bridge that
straddled the canal, entered through a series of three locked gates, then made our way
down a narrow, long weedy walk that separated the railroad tracks above and the canal
below. Finally, we opened the final locked gate to a tiny paradise. The 300 square foot
landscape was like a Charleston townhouse garden, beautifully layered combinations of
perennials and woodies. Adjacent to the garden was an old storage building that Theo had
converted into a small studio, complete with all the amenities of home. At the other end
of the garden was his small glass greenhouse which was filled with agaves. Each agave
was perfectly manicured, precisely labeled, and growing in a perfect size bonsai-style
pot. Theo told us that the land was leased from the railroad along with other residents
who used their plots for vegetable gardening or keeping livestock. Vandals had been a
problem for Theo as they had repeatedly broken out greenhouse panes. When he finally
caught the vandals in action, he managed to throw them all into the canal, and if you saw
this canal, you would realize that this was not a "good thing."

Sunday August 8

On Sunday morning, we were met at our hotel by Luc Klinkhamer of the CNB Auction
(www.cnb.nl/greenteam). I should mention a bit about how the Dutch horticulture
industry works. There are growers, exports, and auction houses. The growers grow the
plants, but rarely export. The exporters ship the plants, but rarely grow them. The
auctions are intermediaries or brokers who connect growers and exporters. The most
familiar auction is Aalsmeer, where many of the cut flowers are sold. CNB focuses
primarily on bulbs and perennials.

We started the day at Kebra Nursery with Mark van Kestern. Mark grows a number of
newer plants for the exporters, some of which we already had on order. It was great to see
Ruscus aculeatus ‘Christmas Berry'. This fantastic plant is a compact ruscus with
tremendous fruit set, similar to the form that Elizabeth Lawrence used to grow. Sedums
were plentiful here including Mark's introduction, Sedum ‘Crazy Ruffles', along with a
variegated sport of Sedum ‘Matrona' called Sedum ‘Samuel Oliphant'. Mark was also
growing Cypripedium reginae which are being tissue cultured in Holland. This was our
first chance to see Coreopsis ‘Heaven's Gate' in flower. This impressive introduction
from Sunny Border Nursery in the US is a derivative from Coreopsis ‘Sweet Dreams'
with a much darker pink flower, a better habit, and much better winter hardiness.

Our next stop was the wholesale producer, P.T. Warmerdam Nursery. We had met the
Wamerdams several years earlier at the Raleigh Hosta Convention. Dick Warmerdam
took time to show us around his wholesale production and hosta display garden. It took
longer than normal to travel the ½ mile to the greenhouses since everyone in the area was
heading to the beach, only 2 miles away. Although we didn't have time to stop, Luc
informed us that half of the folks on the beach are there topless (not just the men), while
the completely nude beach is separated by only a slightly further distance. The beach is
separated from the production fields by large forested sand dunes. The dunes were more
extensive before they were stripped away decades ago to provide soil to expand
Amsterdam as well as to provide more flat growing fields. The average elevation in all of
Holland is 37', which means that many of the growing fields are below sea level. One
nursery we visited appeared flat, but was a staggering 60' below sea level.

Although investigating the beach was tempting, we opted to see more plants. It was off to
Van Noort Nursery, where Marco Van Noort showed us around. Wholesale production in
this part of Holland must be efficient since the land is quite expensive. In this particular
area, land sells for $160,000/acre. Mark's next door neighbor is the one who found and
introduced Echinacea ‘Razzmatazz', so I was finally able to see the plant in person. Also,
we were able to see two US introductions side by side. Both brown leaf Geranium
maculatum cultivars, Geranium ‘Espresso' and Geranium ‘Elizabeth Ann' were being
grown. It was obvious that Geranium ‘Elizabeth Ann' was the better of the two since
Geranium ‘Espresso' had already gone dormant while Geranium ‘Elizabeth Ann' still
looked fabulous. We picked up another dark foliage sedum for trial, Sedum
‘Karfunkelstein'...don't you just love those names.

After a quick lunch, we were off to the wholesale field nursery of Kees Van Den
Aardwegh. Dick Van Aardwegh had the largest planting of Brunnera ‘Jack Frost' that I've
ever seen along with the new solid silver sport, Brunnera ‘Looking Glass'. Both looked
exceptional in the fields. We were also very taken with silver leaf Pulmonaria ‘Samurai',
a cross of Pulmonaria ‘Majeste' x Pulmonaria longifolia var. cevennensis. Miscanthus
sinensis ‘Goldbar' is a new very dwarf Miscanthus ‘Strictus' type that really looked good.
The most exciting plant, however, was the new white-edged polemonium from the
Garden in the Woods. Polemonium reptans ‘Stairway to Heaven' PPAF is a stunning
plant that shows what a wimp that Polemonium ‘Brise D'Anjou' really is. I've sure killed
by share of the latter, but this is a real winner that has got the Dutch growers doing
backflips.

From there, we were off to Darwin Plants in Hillengom. Darwin Plants (Witteman) are
one of the largest Dutch exporters of perennials and one of the most aggressive in
acquiring new plants. Salesman Alex Retra, who has visited our nursery several times,
took time from his weekend to show us their shipping facilities as well as their trial
gardens.

Nearby Darwin Plants, we stopped in at the tissue culture lab of Vitro Westland. If you
want a perennial tissue cultured in large numbers, Vitro Westland is the place. The
quantities of hostas being produced here is staggering. It was also great to see production
of Musa ‘Little Prince', a North Carolina introduction from Randy Salter of Raleigh. We
did manage to find three speckled sports of the musa, which they will evaluate. They had
already pulled out three yellow streaked Musa basjoo from their tissue culture block. I'd
have been glad to take care of those, but they weren't offering. Here we also saw
Heuchera ‘Caramel', which Luc told us is a peachy-orange leaf hybrid with Heuchera
villosa. Heuchera hybrids with Heuchera villosa are particularly good in warm, humid
climates, so this one goes on my list.

Luc joined us for a wonderful dinner and persuaded me to try Carpaccio (an appetizer of
ham, cheese, and nuts). Being some of my favorite foods, I indulged only to find out later
that night that raw meat and my stomach were not the best of friends.

Monday August 9

On Monday morning, we visited the Hobaho auction house in Lisse (www.hobaho.nl). A

Dutch flower auction house is reminiscent of a visit to Wall Street...albeit horticultural.
Traders were gathered around in glass-walled offices discussing plants and plant prices.
The center of the auction house is a large glass-walled refrigerated room with display
table of plants which growers have for sale or just for show. The plants are brought in
fresh every Monday and judged by a panel of local experts. The first plant I saw in the
display area was a pot of Eucomis ‘Sparkling Burgundy'...a Plant Delights introduction.
There was also a superb pink flowered form of Eucomis pole-evansii (syn: punctata).
Nearby was a species that I had not ever seen, Eucomis vandermerwei. This dazzling
dwarf species was composed of very flat, heavily ruffled leaves that were covered in
large purple spots. This is truly the most amazing of the eucomis species and a plant that
would start our search for the day. There was a tremendous number of obscenely large-
flowered cut gladiolus is the display room. We found out later that Hobaho also has a
breeding program for cut glads and cut lilies.

Our guide for the day was Eric Breed. Eric's brother worked at NCSU in the 1980s with
Dr. Gus DeHertogh in the bulb research program. Eric's father, retired from Hobaho,
reportedly has the largest private bulb collection in Holland according to my friend Brent
Heath.

As we headed out on our journey for the day, I asked Eric about the problem with viruses
on Dutch bulbs...a common problem associated with loss of vigor. I described my
frustration acquiring plants such as tigridias which were weak and never reappeared after
producing a small flower the first year. Within a minute, Eric wheeled down a short
drive, stopping at an old pick-up truck. The truck marked the beginning of a huge field
(approximately 10+ acres) of tigridias in full flower. As we queried the owner of the
field, F. HA Vaneuwijk and Sons, he explained that all of his tigridias are seed grown and
not produced by division. The flowers were indeed huge and the plants showed no
obvious symptoms of virus. Most of the rows were segregated by color...yellow, white,
pink, and even a few rows of mixed colors. This was a exciting find if we can get these
exceptional bulbs into the US.

From the tigridia field, we had a very short drive to the KAVB trial site. This secure site
is where all new dahlia cultivars are examined to make sure they are unique and worthy
of registration. Also, there was a huge block of dahlia whose names are confused in the
trade...wrong name with the wrong plants or two plants sold under the same name. A
panel of dahlia experts comb the blocks and write up their findings to make sure growers
sell their plants under the proper name. This was great news, since the reputation of the
Dutch growers is that they really don't care about proper names. What we quickly found
is that it is only a few of the bottom-end growers are the source of most nomenclatural
problems.

Around the corner, we pulled into the Hobaho breeding fields. Since Hans breeds lilies,
he was amazed by the lily breeding program. Oriental lilies, Oriempets, Asiatic, trumpet
types, and longiflorum x candidum hybrids were in full flower in 500'+ long rows. Their
goal is to produce shorter, more compact plants with obscenely huge flowers. There is no
doubt that the breeding program was quite a success. Hans even spotted a seedling
oriental lily with white-edged leaves. The breeders explained that they threw several of
these away each year, but despite this, they couldn't give the plants away. For a mere
10,000 Euros, they would be glad to sell us the variegated lily. As tempting as it was, we
passed.

Adjacent to the lily plot were acres of gladiolus. We met Cathy Osselton, the gladiolus
breeder from Hobaho, who explained her breeding goals. I was curious about the winter
hardiness of the glads, but we were quickly told that hardy glads are selected against in
Holland. If the gladiolus are winter hardy, any pieces that remain in the field will
contaminate the next years plantings. I spent quite a while trying to convince Eric and
Cathy that a line of winter hardy gladiolus would be quite popular in the US. We'll see if
they took the hint.

Eric had made some calls and located the eucomis grower who had displayed the plants
we saw, so off we went. After a short drive, we pulled into a small field with several long
rows of eucomis in flower. Indeed, here were the Eucomis vandermerwei for which I'd
been searching along with rows of several other more common species. After a little
photographing and quite a bit of drooling, we wandered over to the nursery office to find
the owner, Chris vd Salon. Chris took us out into his breeding fields where he is actually
making hybrids with Eucomis vandermerwei. The hybrids were even more stunning than
the species...short ruffled dark purple leaves on nearly flat plants...oh my! I can see a
bright future for these plants as soon as he begins to release his new hybrids.

Next, we were off to the backyard nursery of Nick Dames. Nick is a former resident of
South Africa and has begun production of several species of Moraea and some other
bulbs to see which will be of interest to the export market. We ended our day at the CNB
trial garden for Dahlias and Zantedeschia. I had been looking for new and better purple
foliage dahlias and was I ever in for a surprise. There is now an entire series of
"Bishops", all with dark foliage and superb flowers. Be on the look out for Dahlia
‘Bishop of York', ‘Bishop of Leicester', ‘Bishop of Oxford', ‘Bishop of Canterbury',
‘Bishop of Lancaster', and ‘Bishop of Buckland.' The great thing is that this isn't all of the
new dark foliage dahlias. The "Happy" series of dahlias have as dark or darker foliage
than the "bishop" series and are much shorter. Keep your eyes out for the Dahlia ‘Happy
Single', ‘Happy Romeo', ‘Happy First Love, and ‘Happy Single Date', to mention but a
few.

The zantedeschia trials were equally as exciting. I thought Zantedeschia ‘Schwarzwalder'

(Black Forest TM) had the darkest flower until I saw Zantedeschia ‘Black Star'...black
flowers, black stems, and green leaves edged in black. After all this plant excitement, it
was back to the hotel to wash and prepare our first box of plants for a phytosanitary
certificate and shipment. Sometime in the wee hours of the morning, the plants were
finally ready for their journey back to the US. We did note on our late night washing
nights that Dutch television is quite a bit more permissive than US television. It was
common to find very explicit "R-rated" movies playing on the standard channels.

Tuesday August 10

We dropped off the plants for shipment and then headed off on our journey to the East.
We had been watching the weather and were expecting the weather to turn bad. It seems
that the hurricane that had graced North Carolina just before we left the US had made its
was across the Atlantic and was now bringing a much needed rain to parched Europe. A
short 1.5 hour drive took us in the town of Wageningen and the home of Wilbert
Hetterscheid. Wilbert is known to aroid lovers as the guru of the genus Amorphophallus.
We first stopped by his home, where he and his family had moved just a couple of
months earlier when he took on the job as director of the Wageningen Botanic Garden
(http://www.dpw.wa geningen-ur.nl/biosys/sectiebottuinen_uk.html). The Wageningen
Botanic Garden had been sadly neglected as we witnessed when we arrived. The intact
outdoor plantings consist of a woody plant collection focusing on the malus family.
Inside the conservatory, Wilbert described it as a second-growth tropical forest...a fancy
word for old and overgrown. To one of the side of the main conservatory were smaller
greenhouses which housed research plants. We spent the majority of our visit looking
through Wilbert's tuberous aroid collection. Wilbert is known throughout the aroid world
for having the largest collection of Amorphophallus species (132) of anyone in the world.
After oohing and aahing over the collection, it was off to lunch at a nearby café. The food
was wonderful and the view overlooking the Rhine River was stunning. It was an
enjoyable lunch except for the battle with the hoards of pesky yellow jackets. Instead of
enjoying a relaxing lunch, we looked more like King Kong atop the Empire State
building, as we swatted away our uninvited guests. Wilbert explained that this had been a
particularly bad year for yellow jackets.

After we dropped Wilbert off at home, we were off for the short 30 minute drive to de
Hessenhof in Ede, the garden and nursery of Hans Kramer. Although you rarely hear of
de Hessenhof (www.hessenhof.nl) in the US, we had been warned that this was the top
specialty nursery in Holland. Hans Kramer is widely regarded as the top hellebore
breeder in continental Europe and his hellebore festival in February attracts over 7,000
visitors. Although we arrived with very high expectations, we were not disappointed. The
nursery is only open three days each week, while Hans and his small staff propagate
plants and maintain the gardens during the other days. Although it was raining now and
this was not an open day, Hans had agreed to allow us to visit. As we talked, we found
that he had visited Plant Delights nearly 11 years earlier..a delightful coincidence.

It's hard to remember all the plant highlights but the yellow foliage Polygonatum
odoratum or the branched Polygonatum multiflorum were high on the list. I was also
particularly taken with one of Hans' introductions, the gold foliage Geranium ‘Blue
Sunrise'. Sedum telephium ‘Lac‘doo', which Hans collected in the South of France was
also quite charming. We left with far too many plants, but no where near enough time to
thoroughly explore the entire garden. De Hessenhof is high on the list for a return visit.

By now, night was falling along with the rain, so we made our way to the southeast in
search of our hotel in Arnhem. We arrived to find a beautiful old town and an equally
aged hotel. Our hotel, the Best Western in Arnhem got off to a bad start with their
inability to give coherent directions...not a language problem. Fortunately, after enough
driving around downtown, we finally stumbled on the hotel. Then came our next
surprise...the hotel's definition of a single bed.. Our reservations had clearly been made
for two people and two beds...simple, right? We opened the door and found one bed and a
tiny room with barely enough room to stand. After a trip back to the front desk, we were
given a slightly larger room, again with one bed. On my third trip to front desk to try and
explain that I needed two beds, the desk clerk finally explained that what seemed like one
bed was actually two single beds under the same covers. I'm going to skip the next
exchange in case there are children reading this. We finally got an acceptable room where
there was enough room to separate the beds and still stand. The only parking lot was a
narrow, dark alley behind the hotel which could only accommodate a small fraction of
the hotel guests. Guess what...no elevator from the parking lot to the first floor. After
lugging our luggage to the lobby, we then had to walk to the other end of the lobby to get
to the elevator. This ancient elevator made those in remote parts of China look modern.
Arriving on the fourth floor, we had to climb additional stairs to get to the rooms. Did I
mention that the room had no air conditioning and it was over 90 degrees outside? We
tried opening the windows only to find the trains running past our room made heavy duty
ear plugs necessary. Our room did come with a fan, which of course was plugged into an
outlet that shut off when you cut the room lights out for the night. Unbeknownst to us, we
were staying at a masterpiece of 18th century Polish engineering.

We dared not eat at the hotel restaurant after the adventure checking in, but fortunately
found a plethora of marvelous eateries less than a block from the hotel. After dinner, it
was back to the parking lot for a midnight run of barerooting our treasures from De
Hessenhof. Did I mention that the only light in the parking lot was on a motion sensor.
After cleaning every two plants, we would have to run to the end of the parking lot to
continually trigger the light. A large construction project adjacent to our hotel gives hope
that a more modern hotel may someday grace downtown Arnhem.

Wednesday August 11

In pouring rain, we drove north 1.5 hours to the town of Dalfsen and the garden and
nursery of Coen Jansen. It's still raining when we arrived - 15" in all according to Coen. I
will admit to my curiosity meeting a Dutchman named Coen (pronounced Coon). Usually
rural North Carolina is the only place you find folks with such a name. Coen was
absolutely delightful as we sat in his visitor center and chatted while waiting for the rain
to slow. After about 30 minutes the rain ended and the water table in the flooded nursery
beds and walkways begin to subside. The only other visitor who showed up during the
downpour was from the Göteborg Botanic Garden in Sweden. We all had a wonderful
chat before we all headed into the nursery beds to being shopping. Coen's nursery was a
good bit smaller than De Hessenhof, but was also filled with wonderful perennial
treasures. Some of Coen's introductions include Geranium ‘Chocolate Candy', Aster
‘Lady in Black', Pulmonaria longifolia ‘Ankum', and Geranium sanguineum ‘Ankum's
Pride'. Two reportedly clumping forms of macleaya, Macleya cordata ‘Spetchley Ruby'
and Macleya ‘Ceyledon Ruffles' caught my eye, as did Coen's introduction, Eupatorium
purpureum ‘Ankum's August'. After several hours of enjoying the gardens as well as
shopping, it was time to depart to the south for our four hour journey south to Belgium.

We got close to our destination for the night, the town of Geel, Belgium (just across the
border), before getting completely lost. Did I mention that the road signs only give
directions to towns and not the number of the highway. For someone used to finding
highway numbers on signs, this does tend to complicate matters. After stopping to ask
directions, we finally arrived at 5:30pm at the garden of Jos van Roosbroeck. We had
found Jos's name on the Internet as having the best collection of agaves in Europe. The
centerpiece of the front garden is a large Sequoiadendron giganteum ‘Pendula' arching
over the driveway, in soft contrast to the spininess of the rest of the plants. The well
manicured garden expanded out from the driveway with an array of planted yuccas
including some obvious interspecific hybrids. The yuccas that particularly caught our eye
were two different clumps labeled Yucca ‘Bright Edge'. One was similar to the plant sold
in the US, and the other a much tighter clump with a different growth habit. Just off the
front drive were huge 10 gallon pots, each filled with a specimen agave. As we traversed
the small path connecting the front yard to the back, the area opened onto a large patio
with hundreds more pots of agaves. Agaves in every shape, color, and size. Jos explained
that he had all of the agaves ever published except for 5 species.

I was also particularly interested in his yucca collection. Jos had 3 different variegated
cultivars of Yucca gloriosa and 3 different center variegated forms of Yucca aloifolia.
After several hours of agave overdose, we felt it was time to leave Jos to eat his dinner
while we were off to find our hotel. Fortunately, our hotel, the Vivaldi in Geel was only a
few miles away. We checked in and then spent a few minutes checking the Internet
connection in the lobby to find the status of the two hurricanes that were headed to
Raleigh. We opted for dinner at the hotel, since we had driven so much during the day
and sat down at one of the many outdoor tables. After waiting for any sign of service
while all the tables filled, it became clear that after 40 minutes, we would likely starve
before served. Off we went to explore other dining options. Fortunately, less than an mile
away, we stumbled on a very fancy Chinese restaurant. I couldn't imagine while the hotel
restaurant was filled while this delightful Chinese restaurant near empty. Oh well, there
loss was our gain.

Thursday August 12

We were off to south again in the morning to La Hulpe, a small town just south of
Brussels. In late morning, we arrived at the garden of Guy (pronounced Gee) and Liliane
Gusman. The Gusmans are the authors of the recently published book, Arisaemas. Guy
and Liliane are both physics teachers (Guy at the college level and Liliane at a high
school) who fell in love with plants...particularly arisaemas. The Gusman garden is
located in a residential area, but surrounded by a tall fence to keep the garden private.
Inside, we found a peaceful oriental style garden and house, landscaped with rare
perennials from around the world. Despite the drizzle, we had a marvelous time exploring
the garden and discussing plants. It was obvious from the plants being grown here that we
were now in a zone 7a climate...slightly warmer winters than the nursery production area
near Boskoop, Holland.

Guy and Liliane later took us to gardens of their friends, the Balis's. Jan Balis's sun and
shade rock garden was filled with one treasure after another...a delightful place to visit.
Down the road, we stopped at the remarkable 1.5 acre garden of Francine Riez. The well
laid meandering paths made the garden seem more like10 acres...a virtual treasure trove
of rare woodies and perennials. This well designed and maintained garden put most
public gardens to shame. Francine's garden has deservedly been featured in a number of
European magazines and books.

After a wonderful dinner with the Gusmans, it was off to our nearby hotel Le Lido on the
scenic Lake Genval for a long night of plant cleaning and labeling.

Friday August 13

Not long after we departed La Hulpe to the north to get on the loop around Belgium,
traffic came to a standstill. For nearly 1.5 hours, we crept along, finally realizing that
there was no accident, only more traffic than the roads can handle. This was vacation
month in Europe and many folks were just returning from vacations in the south of
France.

In the pouring rain, we finally arrived at the National Botanic Garden of Belgium
(www.br.fgov.be) in the town of Meise, just north of Brussels. We had corresponded with
Frieda Billiet, Curator of Indoor Collections, whom I had met years earlier at the
International Aroid Conference in St. Louis. We spent most of our time in the
greenhouses because of the weather; first in the public display houses, then in the
collections area. You could tell that there wasn't large amounts of money being poured
into the botanic garden. Many main pathways were washed out gravel walks and the
production greenhouses were dilapidated to the point that some of the ranges had even
been abandoned. Collections of new taxa had also been suspended for several years due
to their inability to maintain additional plants due to staff cuts. Despite their budget
constraints, an amazing collection of plants still remain and are maintained in very good
condition. Specialty collections include succulents, begonias, bromeliads, gesneriads,
coadiums, and much more. Frieda is nearing retirement and one can only hope that the
gardens hire someone with her knowledge and determination to maintain the collections.

After lunch, we spent a few minutes outdoors between rain showers seeing what we
could of the outdoor displays. A stop in their gift shop found an amazing selection of
gardening books for sale. We found virtually every book that Timber Press sells
including my own, So You Want to Start a Nursery...a nice surprise.

From here, it was off on the 1.5 hour drive to the west to visit was had been described as
Mr. Hosta of Belgium. We finally arrived at the garden of Danny Van Eechaute. Danny's
small garden was literally so packed with hostas that there was little room to walk.
Virtually every hosta that exists were there...some planted and others in large containers
since planting space had long since disappeared. Not only did Danny have hostas that are
on the market, but he had hybrids that had not yet been released along with many of his
own hybrids. If you get to Belgium and want to talk hosta, be sure to give Danny a call.
His website is www.hostacollectie.be The most exciting hostas was a sport of Hosta
‘August Moon' with the same pattern of Hosta ‘Tattoo'. We finally tore ourselves away
for the drive to Breda for the night.

Breda is just over the Belgium/Holland border in Holland. The drive was most eventful,
both for the pouring rain and for the convoluted system of roads around the town of
Antwerpen. I have no doubt that we made at least three complete circles to make our way
around Antwerpen. We were so starved after all our driving that we stopped in a small
neighborhood eatery for dinner. While most of what we saw wasn't recognizable, it all
looked good. We settled for a delicious Binky Burger...watch out McDonalds. After we
finally found and checked into the hotel, we started on another long night cleaning plants.
Fortunately, it was pouring rain and we were able to bareroot plants in the parking lot tree
islands and wash the roots in the parking lot puddles. Okay, it was cold and wet, but it
sure beat clogging up hotel toilet with soil.

Saturday August 14

For our final day, we departed Breda for the 1.5 hour trip north to Rotterdam to visit the
Arboretum Trompenburg (www.trompenburg.nl). We were met by the garden director
Gert Fortgens and his wife Bernadette. Gert formerly worked at the Boskoop Experiment
Station and is responsible for several plant introductions, Agastache ‘Blue Fortune',
Buddleia ‘Pink Delight' and Buddleia ‘Summer Beauty'. We spent most of the morning
with Gert and Bernadette exploring the garden. Originally started in 1820, Arboretum
Trompenburg was purchased by J. van Hoey Smith and turned into a conifer collection.
To make the garden more interesting to a wider range of people, Gert has installed
perennials throughout the garden. The transformation is amazing, and I would certainly
rank this among my all-time favorite botanical gardens.

There were so many highlights of the garden, it's hard to mention them all, but there were
some very cool yuccas. One seventy-year old patch of a suckering blue form of Yucca
filamentosa was 100' long x 20' wide. Another huge trunked yucca appeared to be a
hybrid of Yucca recurvifolia x gloriosa. The alphabetically arranged hosta walk was quite
nice as was Gert's huge collection of ligustrums..probably the largest in the world. After
finishing a quick tour around the arboretum, it was off to the Fortgens home for lunch.

From here, we wanted to stop by Marco Fransen's nursery again on the way back to
Amsterdam. Since Marco was now back from vacation, Gert wanted to visit as well, so
Hans rode with Gert and I followed with Bernadette. About 10 minutes before arriving at
Marco's, my rental car mysteriously died in the middle of the highway. We were able to
coast into the median, where we called ahead to let Gert and Hans know what had
happened...never expect plant people to stop when plants are calling. The wrecker arrived
about 1.5 hrs after our call to the rental car agency. By this time Gert had dropped Hans
off at Marco's and returned to check on our status. The towing service was based near the
Fortgens home, so we backtracked, picked up a new car and headed off again to Marco's
nursery. I finally arrived, but after my three hour car ordeal, only had time to say hello
before departing to our hotel in Amsterdam.

After checking into our hotel, the Radisson Amsterdam, near the airport, it was time for
dinner. I wondered why I had been able to get such a good deal at the hotel and the
answer was obvious...they charge for everything. Parking was 15 Euros, breakfast was 19
Euros, and using the Internet was 20 Euros per hour. Fortunately, we found an office
building next door for free parking and spied a McDonalds nearby for breakfast. We had
heard that Mary Walters of Walters Gardens in Michigan was in town, so we had set up a
rendevous for dinner. It is always great to have time to compare notes and talk new
plants. After dinner, another long night awaited as we completed the final plant prep and
paperwork for getting a phytosanitary certificate. Sunday morning, we were off with our
plants following soon behind us. The plants are now recovering from their trip home and
hopefully a large number of them will survive and turn out to be great additions to
American gardens.

-tony