If you read this blog often, you know how much I love walking around gardens. I love the Caribbean gardens. But I also have a home and there is definitely the most beautiful garden in the whole world. There’s something very special about my mother’s garden. It is a magnificent piece of family history.

It is August.

It is the time of my visit to my mother. And it is the time of my mother’s garden. Everything is blooming and greening and growing so beautifully, like Spain’s flowers … It’s just a splendour. We arrive on a Saturday. The grandchildren with us, we are sitting in the garden. It is chilly. The whole summer has been cold so far. Hilde (that’s my mom’s name) doesn’t mind. She stands in the garden at over 80 years old and is happy. As soon as the sun comes out, everything in the house is secondary. One is sitting in the garden on the small terrace overlooking the many flowers.

Hannah, 5 years old, asks for my cell phone. She absolutely has to take pictures and off we go. All the photos you can see here are taken by my grandchildren. I find it strange that kids take pictures of flowers. But it is not only the impact of flowers. It is the overflowing power and splendour of an old garden.

Harvest

The most beautiful lettuce grows in 2 raised beds, and we can’t eat enough of them for now. Fenced in – so the birds don’t eat the spoils – grow blueberries. Henri and Hannah’s favourite berries and in the beds and on the trees grow the rest of the delicious harvest. There are many different kinds of old roses, dahlias and herbs. Berries and garlic, fennel and carrots. All organic, nothing is fertilised. Nothing is pretentious. Everything has been there for a long time.

I grew up in this garden. Bathed in a tub here as a little kid and took my first photos with my friends as an annoying teenager. Dreamed of bigger boobs here with my schoolmate Lisa and laid in the grass with Tom drawing castles. No I don’t have a romantic idea of this garden, the garden is romantic.

History and stories

In this garden my mother grew up. My grandparents buried a box with valuable china and silverware during the war. The box still exists. It serves my daughter as a living room table and I am the proud owner of a valuable, beautiful lace quilt that already belonged to my grandmother. My grandparents owned a paint store and artist supplies. There were many things that inspired me as a child. But I always felt the box was the heavenly secret of the garden.

Today, I see my mom sitting there enjoying the sun and my grandkids nibbling away at the blueberry hedges. That alone was worth the arduous journey home. / Karin Binz