GPOD on the Road: Tom de Witte’s New Home Garden in the Netherlands

Hello GPODers!

After we noticed the inflow of GPOD submissions showcasing attractive backyard locations final week, we determined it could be the right alternative to share one of many gardens that members of Advantageous Gardening staff are very excited to go to this yr. Each attractive backyard that we get to go to for the journal is one thing particular, however there are particular events the place we get to go to a panorama that seems like way over simply one other work task. When the plan was made to go to Tom de Witte’s new house backyard within the Netherlands, we knew it could be a very particular journey. Right here’s what our Editorial Director, Danielle Sherry, has to say about this panorama designer’s beautiful new creation:

Some gardens are lovely. Some are instructive. After which there are the uncommon ones that handle to be each without delay—areas the place each determination appears intentional from an academic and aesthetic standpoint. Tom de Witte’s new house backyard within the village of Groede, within the far southwest of the Netherlands, is that form of backyard.

Tom is likely one of the most revered panorama designers working within the Netherlands at this time. His plantings—layered, naturalistic—are knowledgeable by an encyclopedic data of how crops truly behave. Maybe you understand his title from his decades-long working relationship with Piet Oudolf, the daddy of the New Perennial motion, or his awe-inspiring Instagram feed.

However Tom’s new backyard in Groede is one thing completely different. When the employees at FG acquired a folder of pictures from him lately, there was an audible gasp. The backyard is clearly an area the place he experiments freely, crops boldly, and lets his journey influences present.

Tom attracts inspiration not simply from the Dutch panorama—the polders, the dunes, the wide-open coastal skies of Zeeuws-Vlaanderen, the place Groede sits near the Belgian border—however from his travels a lot farther afield. Tasmanian rainforests, North American prairies, and the verges of the Zeeland polder roads all discover their approach into his plant palette and his considering. The result’s a backyard that seems like a distillation of a life spent taking a look at how crops develop within the wild and determining how one can translate that into human-designed area.

What strikes you first is the sense of motion and selection. Some areas of the backyard have a distinctly prairie like high quality that many North American gardeners from the Midwest will acknowledge immediately, with ethereal grasses and perennials rising and mingling in ways in which really feel pure reasonably than positioned. Flip a nook, although, and the character shifts totally—a extra refined and composed part takes over, the place Tom’s formal coaching on the Horticulture Faculty in Boskoop and his eye for construction and rhythm turn into obvious.

It’s a backyard of a number of personalities, held collectively by a deeply constant and cohesive plants-first logic. Texture, seasonality, and the best way gentle performs by means of translucent seed heads and grass blades are the true organizing ideas right here.

Tom can be a designer who thinks significantly about how a backyard is skilled over time—each throughout seasons and throughout years. He builds plant communities designed to be resilient and sturdy, not simply spectacular at a single second (nobody hit wonders allowed!).

And he’s keenly conscious of how guests transfer by means of an area: the backyard is as a lot about sequence and viewpoint as it’s about particular person crops, though there are many varietal standouts to seize your consideration.

Each pathway, each flip, each threshold between one space and the subsequent is thoughtfully thought of. You by no means fairly see the entire thing without delay, and that perpetual sense of discovery may be very a lot by design.

And this backyard continues to be evolving. Tom’s new backyard in Groede is younger sufficient which you could see the designer’s considering taking form, however already filled with mixtures and compositions that may cease any plantsperson of their tracks.

To go to it now’s to catch one thing uncommon: an excellent designer within the act of making, with all of the power and ambition that brings.

Need to go to this backyard with Tom as your information? Go ‘On the Street’ with Advantageous Gardening!

This September, Advantageous Gardening is heading to the Netherlands for an unique nine-day backyard tour—and Tom de Witte’s new house backyard in Groede is likely one of the highlights of Day 7. Tom can be on-site to stroll us by means of the backyard himself, sharing his planting logic, his upkeep philosophy, and the design selections behind this deeply private area. It’s the form of uncommon, behind-the-scenes entry that merely doesn’t exist for most of the people.

The Advantageous Gardening Gorgeous Gardens of the Netherlands Tour runs September 4–12, 2026, led by award-winning British backyard designer Annie Guilfoyle alongside Advantageous Gardening‘s personal Danielle Sherry and Carol Collins. Over 9 days, the group will go to an distinctive vary of personal and public gardens throughout the nation—from Piet Oudolf’s sculpture backyard at Singer Laren, to Mien Ruys’s historic backyard rooms in Dedemsvaart, to Arjan Boekel’s daring city meadow in Arnhem, and rather more. Tom’s go to additionally features a cease on the close by nursery In Goede Aarde, the place a curated choice of perennials and grasses—from the acquainted to the really uncommon—are displayed in inspiring mixtures.

Spots are restricted and filling quick. To study extra or reserve your house, go to store.finegardening.com/pages/tour/gardentravel-2026sep-netherlands

We need to see YOUR backyard!

Have pictures to share? We’d like to see your backyard, a selected assortment of crops you’re keen on, or an exquisite backyard you had the prospect to go to!

To submit, fill out the Backyard Photograph of the Day Submission Kind.

You can too ship 5–10 pictures to [email protected] together with some details about the crops within the footage and the place you took the pictures. We’d love to listen to the place you’re situated, how lengthy you’ve been gardening, successes you’re pleased with, failures you realized from, hopes for the longer term, favourite crops, or humorous tales out of your backyard.

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Advantageous Gardening Advisable Merchandise

Corona® Multi-Function Metallic Mini Backyard Shovel

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Planting in a Put up-Wild World: Designing Plant Communities for Resilient Landscapes

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That includes attractive pictures and recommendation for landscapers, Planting in a Put up-Wild World by Thomas Rainer and Claudia West is devoted to the thought of a brand new nature—a hybrid of each the wild and the cultivated—that may nourish in our cities and suburbs.

Pruning Simplified: A Step-by-Step Information to 50 Common Timber and Shrubs

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Pruning Simplified reveals you precisely how one can do it. This must-have information presents skilled recommendation on one of the best instruments for the job, particular particulars on when to prune, and clear directions on how one can prune. Profiles of the 50 hottest bushes and shrubs—together with azaleas, camellias, clematis, hydrangeas, and extra—embrace illustrated, easy-to-follow directions that may make sure you make the proper minimize the primary time.