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ISSUE #2 – 2008 STRICTLY UNEDITED JOURNAL ON THE PERSONAL EXPERIENCE OF NATURE IN THE URbAN ENvIRONmENT
CLUB DONNY
NOW ARNOUD HOLLEMAN Good footwear is important. Preferably your shoes have memory gel in the shank to provide optimum support for the ankles. The letter R is knitted into one of your seamless socks and the letter L into the other. The rest of your body is wrapped up in unzippable tubes and breathing garments that have also been thought about long and hard. Your rucksack contains a bottle of mineral water, from a source in a different country. In a cocoon of design moments, you return to nature. Your focus lies a few metres ahead of you. You closed the front door behind you, transferred from the train to the plane, collected the rented car and now you’re walking here, for the sake of slowing down. Consecutively you see the noses of your left and right shoes appear in your field of vision while a carpet of pebbles, twigs, grasses and mosses glides by beneath you. The rich detailing presents itself as a uniformity, even with the litter of other hikers, but because you are walking along briskly it is nothing more than visual noise, which is interchangeable and alters with every following step. Now and then you look up, your field of vision broadens and you see the path ahead, as far as the bend, but then you look back again to where you are going to place your feet. Hiking is not about what you see; wonderful panoramas are secondary to how the landscape slowly but surely folds into your body. This involves various forms of transfer, at different places in your body. Muscle power brings movement to the skeleton through which you burn your fat reserves. In your lungs the fresh mountain air is absorbed into your blood, whereby an extra oxygen transfer takes place in your brain, making it too into a kind of lung. What happens is that the grit under your feet mixes with the noise in your head. And in the monotony of the constant succession of footsteps, residual thoughts escape like intestinal slugs. Initially this is unpleasant. The physical exertion is a booster, the cadence
of your breathing and your footsteps become the haunted baseline under the story of your life, as you recount it to yourself at that moment. These are compulsive thoughts that return incessantly and have nothing to do with where you are now, but with the everyday life you actually intended to leave behind. Breathing heavily, you finally justify yourself in unresolved conflicts with others using the wildest and most unreasonable argumentation. Your ego grows with every step to ludicrous proportions, bigger than the mountain you are ascending. Passers-by become intruders in the privacy. Murderous fantasies lurk behind every Grüβ Gott. In this way you ascend ever higher. Your breathlessness increases, bringing on a condition that can best be described as a controlled form of hyperventilation. The walking literally keeps you with both feet on the ground, but gradually something also starts to change. Just as the tree line is not an actual line but an area in which the trees become increasingly stubby and eventually disappear from the landscape, above two thousand metres the circling and suspicious thoughts also move ever further outside the realm of language. The thoughts become more rarefied along with the air. The rancour disappears and makes way for new input. Becoming aware of the increasingly sparse flowers and grasses in the ever-rockier landscape is analogous to the creation of new text, which rises up from the midriff. Text that initially means so little that it is barely discernable from the panting and moaning, but which eventually, now and then, does indeed coagulate into vaguely encompassing catchwords. Like Tom Thumb in reverse you gather them up. They are random pebbles collected, to an outsider, at arbitrary moments. You gather them, in the hope that they will one day show you the way back, but back to what exactly? Coherence? Inner
conviction? For the time being there is one pebble for each catchword. The pebble, hard and ancient, the immaterial catchword, too premature and fragmentary to carry with you as an autonomous idea or image. Together in your trouser pocket, the pebbles make a muted ruffle against your thigh with every step, which lends style to the final hundred metres to the top. One pebble for the system of gathering pebbles itself. Things to remember other things. This I must remember. One pebble for nature, which continues to exist even when you don’t name it. Entire mountains, which may have names in maps, in books, and among people, but which in reality are just vastness, movement, and depth. One pebble for A sense of loss, for something that never quite existed. Must look up at home. And so on. Stray sentences. Fragments of songs. Odd jobs about the house. Ideas for work. Loose circles of questions. Could your mother still physically scale the mountain? No, although she would dearly love to do so. Would your child already be able to physically cope with the mountain? Yes, although he totally fails to see the pleasure of doing so. Would rather read Donald Duck. All right. Passages from books that you recently read yourself. Rodin was sixty when he learned to ride a bicycle. Was not familiar with the work of Darwin. I am. In the meantime all the walks you’ve ever taken merge together. Random moments during previous hikes that appear before you as razor-sharp images. Like dried flowers from a herbarium that come to life again, you experience them once more, without knowing precisely where and exactly when it all took place. Welcome to Alzheimer Alp. Read further on page 32 CLUB DONNY #2 2008 > 03
THE PURPLE-PODDED MARROWFAT PEA JULIUS VERMEULEN Outside the dikes in the river landscape of the Overbetuwe on the fringes of the forelands, our greatest river the Waal flows supreme. Feared for its fickle water level and eulogized for its unique scenic beauty. In the summer this gently flowing giant warmly welcomes us to its cooling riverside to enjoy the ruminating cattle and banks of titanium-white clouds, languidly floating across the forelands. Swallows swoop and screech in their dozens above the high grass. In the distance the town in the summer heat, shimmering, floating up from the horizon. Only at the end of autumn, when the cattle dissolve in the cool haze of the evening dew and will soon be moved into the cowshed, does the water begin to swell. Presently there will be nothing by which to remember this sweet summer idyll: the friendly flow will soon transform into a swirling wasteland, tormented and merciless, seeking an outlet to the lowlands in the west. Far from the city, with only the chugging sound of boat engines, under the protective lee of the dyke, surrounded by oaks, chestnuts and poplars, stands the small white church of Slijk-Ewijk. This gothic monument, the first stones of which date back to the fifteenth century, is truly stunning. The village itself is even older and was described in Latin as early as eight fifty-five (855) as Euuci Silec, which means something like Eternal Mire. What providence! The fertile river clay is still the substrate for the endless rows of fruit trees that appear as Walter-de-Maria-esque installations behind the dykes. But the Betuwe has always been about more than just fruit growing. A myriad of vegetables and agricultural crops were cultivated here, such as potatoes, onions, beet, grain, grass and beans. And what few people still remember: tobacco used to be grown here on a large scale. From sixteen
hundred on, small farmers (planters) increasingly began to concentrate on the cultivation of tobacco, which was labour-intensive but highly lucrative. Tobacco warehouses sprung up around ferry terminals and flatboats were used in shallow parts of the river to collect the dried tobacco. There was a lively trade in everything the land produced.
swim and the great diving beetle mounts its forays in the ditch with oozing water. During the evening the rustling hedgehogs emerge to feast on the snails in the huge vegetable garden. Every year a great wonder reveals itself here. It begins as the warm spring sunshine entices the first seeds out of the grey river clay. A fragile and delicate start to a great adventure that will only end months later under the full summer sun in an ecstatic celebration when the crops eventually give up their fruits. Potatoes, chard, carrots and leeks. Chicory and lettuce stand together beside the redcurrants, gooseberries, strawberries, blackberries and raspberries. Nasturtiums and tomatoes. Apples, quinces, plums and cherries. Pumpkin, aubergines, cucumbers and courgettes. The hazel and walnut and finally, rows of beanhedges with peas, dwarf, runner, and broad beans.
Until long after the second half of last century there would be a huge crowd during the summer when the various crops were harvested. Great combine harvesters, picking and lifting machines thundered through the village followed by a (long) caravan of carts with crates of fruit staked high. Together with tremendous hay-wagons they spread a wonderful characteristic scent of summer for miles around. This hustle and bustle continued ‘til late in the evening and as darkness fell the machines became enormous insects, whose luminous eyes transformed the fields into a Fellini film décor. The bean-hedgerows with their cross-tied sticks formed architectonic axes whereby a The village has fallen silent. Land consolidation harmonious structure of space and arrangement and increases in scale have taken their toll. The was created. Here grows the most beautiful and small-scale activity is gone and with it the soul delicious marrowfat pea: the ‘Blauwschokker’. A of the village has disappeared. The church – icon magnificent plant that, once fully grown, can stand of bygone days – has remained. Simultaneously over two metres tall. A green hedge bedecked with melancholy and vital. And tucked away behind cheerful purple flowers from which the pods will a hedge of blooming lilacs, the accompanying later emerge. The pods are deep purple in colour monumental parsonage with a coach house and and have a downy appearance. They hang like silk a centuries-old beech tree, between which an old cocoons waiting for the moment when they will be orchard lies, bounded by a phenomenal vegetable picked by a soft hand. Shortly after, they will be garden. This is the territory of the tawny owl carefully unzipped and then the light green peas whose mysterious nocturnal call makes the will see daylight for the first time. mice tremble. And on quiet evenings and nights in spring, the nightingale fills your ears with Every spring you could find me in the garden its glorious crescendo of warbles and trills. So with my father. Armed with bundles of willow beautiful that it inspired Tchaikovsky to write branches (sometimes bamboo sticks), we spent his Opus Humoresque. But also finches, wrens, days building the frames from which we would woodpeckers and naturally the swallows gladden later pluck the fruits. It was a meticulous job this little paradise with their presence. Salamanders because a fully-grown bean-hedge can catch a Read further on page 32
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FLOWER ARRANGEMENT CLAUDIE DE CLEEN 1.>Flowers in a vase are dead flowers. This is one of my father-in-law’s sayings that made quite an impression on me. I was as green as grass, head over heels in love with his son and brought up with the same self-evident view of life that my parents espoused. Flowers are beautiful, full stop. I had felt the sombre variety myself, during adolescence, sitting alone in my room endlessly listening to Morrisey of The Smiths, but I had never before seen it advocated by an adult. It affected me. It meant that I began to see the vase of flowers that my mother refreshed every week as something nasty. Strangely enough, when I moved into lodgings I did initially adopt my mother’s habit of buying flowers every week, just as I also bought a pound of extra mature cheese and family-packs of minisnickers. I had to get used to the possibility of organizing my life in my own way and on the basis of my own decisions. Only after a while did I realize that there were other kinds of cheese than the mature variety, and also that I didn’t need flowers in a vase to be able to feel at home.
I think that the women must have felt that, holding such a bouquet in their arms. Moreover it is fairly uncommon for a Dutch man to be so courteous. Dutch women, in turn, tend to think that such a man wants something from them. Anyway. Nowadays my brother’s spending habits have been soundly adjusted. Not because he no longer loves beautiful flowers, but rather under pressure from his accountant, who began making remarks about his extremely high ‘additional expenses’. Another reason is that he has been happily in love for a number of years and, accordingly, no longer needs to win hearts. The woman he met shares his passion for beautiful flowers, she, like he, did her weekly shopping at Gerda’s. One day in the shop she was complaining about the lack of good men. As a hard-working woman in her forties it was proving difficult to meet one. The florist thought of this when my brother walked into the shop shortly afterwards. He had often spoken with her about his conquests or disappointments in that department. She gave him the woman’s telephone number and, after a blind date, they have now been living together for years on a houseboat.
2.>My oldest brother is known for his fondness for luxurious bouquets of flowers. He not only places them in his home, he also used to buy them for women he secretly desired, in order to make an impression on them. He bought his flowers from Gerda’s Bloemen in the Jordaan, where you can buy flowers separately, so a bouquet didn’t necessarily have to consist of the obligatory bunch of roses and gypsophila, but could be composed of a single wild rose, a few gladioli and three parrot tulips (by way of an example). This is not cheap, but that didn’t alter the fact that my brother’s bouquets often grew into impressive, exuberant constructions with which, in my opinion, he more often repelled the women than won them over. The beauty of the flowers actually made everything around them pale in comparison.
3.>This year I celebrated my birthday properly for once. I sent out invitations and hired the café on the corner. It’s just not really feasible to receive family, friends and acquaintances at the same time in an upstairs flat measuring 55m2. The week before I deliberately didn’t buy any flowers. Experience had taught me that at least three different bouquets of flowers adorn my home after celebrating my birthday. I can’t really enjoy them though, because the image of the one vase of flowers is spoiled by the others standing a metre away (as I already wrote, we live in a small apartment). I subsequently neglect the flowers, in the hope that there will soon be fewer of them. Preferably I am left with the most beautiful bouquet, but that’s not always the case. The day after this party our house contained
the following: a self-arranged bouquet, which included a lime-green aster, two burgundy dahlias and a blue-and-purple delphinium. Two branches with inedible mini-apples. Four sprigs of a kind of rocket-like orange flower. (One flower per decade I realized later). A big bunch of old rose coloured Michaelmas daisies. And a bouquet of those calyxes popular at weddings and funerals – not white but rust-coloured. (I had forgotten to bring this bouquet home but was forced to pick it up the following day under duress from my friend, whose mother had given the flowers. In the café they were still standing patiently waiting for me in a beer glass filled with cloudy water). Further there were three pots each containing a pink gerbera along with a peanut plant. And, not forgetting, a little plant in a magenta pot that I received from my five year old son. On the florist’s advice I will have to water this plant every week until May 2009 if I ever want to see it flower. 4.>I often have the feeling that other people are completely sure of themselves. So too in the florists. But after inquiring around it appears that many people can start feeling insecure the moment they enter one. You’re looking for deep red dahlias, but you see pink or yellow ones. You just want bright red gladioli but they sell every other colour except that one. Or you do see the flowers you want but they are twice as expensive as you thought they would be. It’s no wonder that the tulip is such a popular flower. Reasonably priced, practically always in stock, available in many colours and varieties and, what I really like, something happens to them when you put them in a vase. (There’s nothing as tedious as a bouquet of flowers that appears to last forever whether you water them or not). So I often leave the florist carrying a bunch of tulips, but sometimes, if I dare, I just walk out of the shop.
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DUTCH WAVE GASTON BEKKERS
Here in Berkshire, to the west of London, the landscape is perhaps as English as it gets, at its most scenic. Generally speaking, around ten minutes before landing at Heathrow airport and if the weather is clear, you can see the Long Borders and the Square Garden of Waltham Place melting into the English countryside. But that is all very different with the family’s private helicopter. In bygone days this ‘organic farm’ was part of the extensive estates of Windsor. The owners of the estate are, however, still wealthy, very wealthy. The family have been the continual residents of this estate with its historical gardens from generation to generation, besides owning nature reserves and country estates in South Africa. Various landscape gardeners designed the gardens of Waltham Place and ‘head gardeners’ are primarily responsible for their maintenance. On this day, in early autumn, a press conference was planned for the publication of Essay on Gardening, a translation of the book Buiten is het groen by Dutch writer and garden designer Henk Gerritsen. The production of the book and its translation into English took around a year and a half. Henk, who has been seriously ill for some time, had urgently informed us on several occasions that very soon, possibly even on the same day, he would die. Accordingly the couple, the occupants of the estate, had marked the invitation with: ‘If Henk is well enough, he will sign copies’. But unfortunately Henk was absent. That may have also had something to do with the vulnerability of the gardens themselves, which he has transformed over the years in an entirely selfwilled style but which require a certain sensitivity in their maintenance. For me it was the fourth time, visiting Waltham Place. I once met the head gardener responsible for the implementation of Henk’s plans. During my first stay, years ago, I was very impressed by the renovation work he’d
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already carried out. Although back then only a small part of Henk’s plan had been realized, my initial idea for a publication began taking shape. The head gardener currently works on another large estate, a short distance away, but he returned for the occasion to show the guests round. In fact it couldn’t be more perfect. Inviting the press to the place where the author of the book has created a kind of ‘masterpiece’. And, the first laudatory review by the editor of the well-known gardening magazine BBC Gardens Illustrated was appropriate. ‘I found it compulsive, and a book that I’m sure I will refer back to for many years to come’. In earlier articles too, which appeared in The Times, The Sunday Telegraph and The Observer, Henk was characterized as one of the most important ‘avant-garde’ garden designers of the past twenty years. The actual meaning of such a statement is always rather vague, but what he does with plants and gardens is certainly amazing. The first book Droomplanten (Dream plants), which he wrote together with Piet Oudolf was an international bestseller and translated into several languages. In England people soon began talking of the ‘Dutch Wave’ in gardening. ‘Simcox’, the butler, had probably recommended that the presentation be moved from the imposing library, with its view of the terrace and ‘Long Borders’, to the barn, which also houses the estate’s organic farm shop. The guests’ wandering in and out might be more agreeable there. In the middle of the large barn stood a number of projection screens showing a black-and-white portrait of a grinning Henk, at work in his Priona garden in Schuinesloot. The owner held the opening speech and informed us in a very familiar tone, about how his wife, who he consistently called ‘Strill’, had managed to snare Henk to design the garden of their estate. It began with a garden
excursion to the Netherlands. Initially, Henk was wholly unenthusiastic, and discouraging. They were obviously delighted by the fact that it had all worked out eventually. In several respects, Henk’s unique choice and combinations of plants dovetails well with the couple’s ‘organic’ worldview. ‘We feel that Waltham Place is ideally situated to do this as its connection to the natural order of things leaves people open to explore the creative side of spirituality’. A worldview that would be further propagated that day, in all kinds of ways. Everything, the cakes, vegetables and juices originated from the estate’s own harvest and tasted exquisite. The enthusiasm of the former chief gardener at the start of the garden tour gradually took on a slightly critical undertone. The essence of the working title of the book A game of chess with nature had left its mark in practice. The desire to allow spontaneous developments (weeds) in among the planting did not always achieve the intended effect. Since this kind of gardening requires the gardener to have a vast knowledge of plant species and their development, and is furthermore very time-consuming, the quality can suffer as a result. But when it does work, the result is immediately spectacular. The highlight of the tour this time was the Square Garden, a walled garden originally laid-out in the seventeenth century. These days, scattered on a subsoil of gravel, plants including the sea kale, red valerian and Stipa are grown here. Another section of the garden consists of biennial Umbelliferae including hogweed and the naturally occurring Diamond Grass ‘Karl Foerster’, Miscanthus sinensis ‘Gracillimus’. The result, particularly at this time of year, is breathtaking. The great beauty here though, also lies in the combination of the existing traditional ornamental garden with the deliberately introduced wilderness.
WE ARE NOT ALONE KIRSTEN ALGERA When I felt the embroidered matchbox give way under my weight, I knew that I needed a guardian angel. I wanted to cry out that it was an accident, that the embroidery was the same colour as the chair, that it was difficult to see, that I’d make a new one with the same half-finished bunny on it, but my tongue refused. Janny Sparrow, who had been working on it for three handicraft lessons, shoved a school table aside with her impressive rear end and came towards me. How I regretted the fact Janny’s physical appearance bore absolutely no resemblance to the tiny bird from which her family name was derived. Her arms were the size of the kebab-meat stacks at the Sphinx Diner in the Hoofdstraat. Only the freckles on her face were somewhat reminiscent of the feathers of a small bird, but they had now disappeared behind the spreading red blotches. ‘No one can save you’ she hissed in my ear, and in my mind’s eye I saw my classmates and Miss Dolfien nodding. At three o’clock she was waiting for me by the bicycle sheds. She already had the zip of her trouser suit pulled up to under her chin, as racing cyclists do when they begin the descent in the mountainous stage, and I knew the sort of effort she was about to exert. The exact clinches she used eluded me, but I ended up where I had already ended twice that year: in the ditch behind the Parkschool. I just caught a glimpse my rucksack flying through the air before the edge of the Peace badge grazed my left eye. In the shallow water I felt the mud under my back and heard the frogs croaking as if trying to expel the lungs from their bodies. My father always said that pain is in your head, and it was true, but not in the way that my father meant.
globe with delicate satellite spheres like small spaceships around the mother ship, each studded with hundreds of tiny lights, twinkling against the backlight in broad daylight. How often had I hoped that I’d be taken? WE ARE NOT ALONE. I waited for the five alien musical notes that I knew from my worn-out videotape. But there was no sound other than the ditchwater softly lapping in my ears and the hysterical croaking of the frogs, who would have preferred not to have any close encounter with intruders. A sickly smell of plants swirled in my nostrils. On the grooved stem, under the mop-head satellites, small leaves waved with finely pinnated fingers. They beckoned me. Stand up! Stand up, you washout! The beams explored my feet, my elbows, the parts of my body that hadn’t sunk beneath the duckweed. They curled around my shivering body and lifted me up until I was sitting back on the bank again, squeezing-out my own drenched matchboxes from the rucksack. Not that the boxes meant anything to me now. It was as if my body were aglow from the encounter with my new friend with the finely pinnated leaves and extra-terrestrial appearance. What piece of embroidery or trouser suit could hurt me now? In the Doedens Herbal Encyclopaedia, which I’d found among the Donald Duck comics in the garage, I thumbed past the Lesser Marshwort (Ondergedoken Moerasscherm), Hemlock Water Dropwort (Dodemansvingers) and Devil’s Dung (Duivelsdrek), finally finding my close encounter of the third kind in the Umbelliferae section, radiating from plate 328: Angelica Archangelica, ‘with the irregular lobed fin leaves’. Janny Sparrow had her alien forearms, but I had my Angelica Archangelica. To me, the name Angelica I don’t know how long I lay there. My body had for my angelic friend seemed just as meaningful stopped, as if someone had pulled its plug from as the relationship between Janny Sparrow’s name the socket. Just above the duckweed I squinted and her appearance was arbitrary. my right eye into a slit and saw a man-sized mop-head leaning over me. A shining green In the year that followed Janny moved to another
town and I made many new plant friends. They affected me not because they were beautiful, or smelled nice, or that they looked like a painting in our hallway, but because they appeared at important places in my life and their names were appropriate. Plump Stocking (Vette Kous), Racing Heart (Hartgespan), Weeping Eyebright (Beklierde Ogentroost), The-longer-the-better (Hoe-langerhoe-liever), Painter’s sorrow (Schildersverdriet), Faith of the Maiden (Meisjestrouw), Stinking Crane’s Bill (Stinkende Ooievaarsbek), Babeon-mother’s-apron (Kindje-op-Moeders-Schoot), Bleeding Heart (Gebroken Hartje), Black-eyed Susan (Suzanne-met-de-mooie-ogen), Hairy flea-bane (Ruige Fijnstraal) and Bird in the Bush (Vogeltje-op-de-kruk) appeared and remained. I looked them up in the Doedens and kept them in my thoughts, like a head-garden where I could stroll around at will. A place that reality has no hold on and the dream has yet to begin. It was, then, no coincidence that beside the Berber rug, upon which I was deflowered during a babysitting evening in 1983, stood a brown vase with an Angelica Archangelica stem. I squinted my right eye into a slit and saw the green spaceship leaning over our naked bodies. My boyfriend wiped a lazy drop of sweat from his forehead and raised an eyebrow. ‘We are not alone’, I whispered in his ear.
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Continue reading page 03 NOW >ARNOUD HOLLEMAN
ANDER’S SON RENÉ VAN PELT
Thus you eventually reach the summit, or the Pass, that doesn’t matter, because the physical toil is over and the addictive wonder drawing near. The sudden panoramic view produces a corresponding effect in your head. With the power of a freshly washed sheet that is beaten dry, the landscape that has folded itself into your body for the past few hours smoothes out. Finally. There you are. The noise in your head dissolves. Die Gedanken sind frei. You throw away the collection of stones. Except for one, which stands for this single clear understanding: here I am; here is my life; and here is the world. Now. (October 2008, written under the heavy influence of Rainer Maria Rilke and Allen Ginsberg.)
Continue reading page 04 THE PURPLE-PODDED MARROWFAT PEA
Nature – you burn it, harvest it, piss in it, dump take them back indoors, unused. The lawn at the wheels and oil drums in it, and as an ecological front is mowed by removing two wires of the farmer, leak motor oil into it. cows’ fence so that they can stroll into the garden. Ruminating, they lie in the Forsythia’s shadow or None of it out of spite – he loves nature. He is on the driveway. one of the rare Swedes whose name – either his surname or his given name – makes no reference Our own house is like a sundial, facing due south. to nature. He is Anders’ son. He knows all the folk Our oblong plot of land borders on a fence which tunes about flowers and wild beasts, and he has is fabulous. With passing years, it has become a a secret wild strawberry field in the woods. Last patchwork of string, rope, pallets and branches. summer, he took me there. We were talking about It is not often the cows choose to stay in their agriculture subsidies as we wove our way up the meadow. They amble in the oats, in the village, hill. Aghast, he stood motionless and stared at a or in our garden. Effortlessly, they leap over the pool of water ingrown with reeds. This was the fence, get stuck in it or simply climb it. In spring, spot, but the strawberry field was no more. He they are tempted by everything that is green, in shrugged, tore up some bell-flowers with roots autumn it is the apples in the grass that they are and all. ‘There is something special with this after. landscape,’ Anders’ son said, although he could not quite remember what it was. I have abandoned the efforts to grow summer flowers in the open ground. The mud, the stones We live on the same side of the valley, with our and the snails have disheartened me. Now, my backs against the rock face. When he is sitting in garden stands above ground, in three rectangular his kitchen and going on about the village people boxes, made of pallets with roofing tiles inserted or how it used to be once upon a time, he points at to keep the earth from leaking out. Mice have the rock face behind his house. That is where the occupied one of the boxes and are gnawing at the big world is. His own world lies in front of him. beanstalks on ground level. Scarlet lily beetles and This is where the cows graze, where the oats grow a handful of grasshoppers inhabit the box with and grass on the meadows where hay is made. Two perennials and herbs. The third box is still a haven birches guard the driveway to his house. There is a of peace, that is where marigolds and Zinnias Forsythia bush with a blue birdcage on the far side blossom. of the lawn, and a pear tree a little further down, where the ground is wet. There are rosebushes at Anders’ son visits us regularly. He passes the the front. ‘You want to strew ashes from the stove box with perennials, aims a squirt of spittle at the around the roses, for finer blossoms.’ His face mallow, and laments a missing calf. breaks into a smile. His sight is bad, he says, and he is as deaf as a In summertime there is a Petunia hanging on the stone. The oats are harvested in soft meandering veranda, and there are pansies in the balcony lines. box. In spring a couple of red tulips make an appearance. Then it is also time to bear out the chairs to the bower of lilacs – and in autumn, to
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>JULIUS VERMEULEN
lot of wind and thus needs to have a solid foundation. In spite of this, a hedge would regularly be blown over completely during a late spring storm. When the frame was finally complete our final task was to plant the sowing seeds from the cold tray between the sticks, using our fingers to make the holes in the ground into which we placed the light-green seeds, before carefully covering over with soil and gently patting down. This was actually the finest moment. Thus we spent a great deal of time together constructing, sowing and harvesting. We argued about the spot, the number of sticks, the distance and the straight line. We talked about life, about women and literature, mainly poetry, and we laughed. Year after year. This magical ritual that took place in our vegetable garden in a period in which the summer was often at its most sweltering is permanently lodged in my memory. An intense experience in which life and love were revealed in a magisterial way. Nothing in the world is as beautiful as this place, a place on the dividing line between reality and an Arcadian primordial power.
DONNY’S FAVOURITES
CACTUSCOLLECTION ROTTERDAM >ARBORETUM TROMPENBURG WWW.TROMPENBURG.NL Trompenburg Gardens & Arboretum is a beautifully laid-out garden with a large collection of exotic flowers, shrubs, perennials, bulbs and corms. The initial layout dates back to 1820. The cactus greenhouse is striking; the collection on display is wide-ranging and very well tended. The fully mature and overgrown specimens of ‘Princess of the Night, Selenicereus pteranthus’ are exceptional. A nocturnal flowering cactus, as the name suggests. Cuttings and clippings are offered for sale in limited quantities. LA BOUTIQUE PARIS >LACHAUME Rue Royale 10/Paris The motto of Lachaume is excellence, Maître Fleuriste since 1845, settled on the prestigious Rue Royale. Lachaume has always stayed true to its identity since the time when Marcel Proust came daily to decorate his buttonhole with a fresh Cattleya. FLOWER NEUROSIS KUTLUG ATAMAN >THE 4 SEASONS OF VERONICA READ Seen from the outside, different views of the interior and of the opposite and side surfaces result, allowing four passages of the video to be observed at the same time. The subject shown is Veronica M. Read, who began cultivating amaryllis (Hippeastrum) in 1994, and who now maintains the National Hippeastrum Collection of the National Council for Conservation of Plants and Gardens (NCCPG), which currently contains seven hundred plants.With fascination, Kutlug Ataman documents the dedication with which Ms. Read devotes herself to her passion in her home in the London suburbs. In the hour-long interview, he gets the plant lover to reveal even intimate fantasies. LOS ANGELOS – CULVER CITY >THE CENTER FOR LAND USE INTERPRETATION WWW.CLUI.ORG The Center for Land Use Interpretation is a research organization interested in understanding the nature and extent of human interaction with the earth’s surface. The Center embraces a multidisciplinary approach to fulfilling the stated mission, employing conventional research and information processing methodology as well as nontraditional interpretive tools. SPACE, LIGHT AND FORM WEST HOLLYWOOD >SCHINDLER HOUSE/STUDIO WWW.MAKCENTER.ORG Rudolf M. Schindler’s Studio-Residence was the first modern house to respond to the unique climate of California, and as such it served as the prototype for a distinctly Californian style of design. From 1922 until his death in 1953, the building functioned as Schindler’s home and studio. During this thirty-year period, Schindler designed houses and small commercial buildings that today are considered landmarks of the modern movement. In his own house, Schindler expressed his philosophy about structure and materials most clearly, but the entire site explores the relationship of space, light, and form. In this, his first independent design in the U.S., Schindler set forth the basic tenets of his architectural philosophy, which he called ‘Space Architecture’. In this masterwork, he established himself as a major figure in the history of the modern movement. MARIA SIBYLLA MERIAN SURINAM >METHAMORPHOSIS INSECTORUM SURINAMENSIUM HTTP://GDZ.SUB.UNI-GOETTINGEN.DE/ In 1699 the German/Dutch entomologist and artist Maria Sibylla Merian set sail with her two daughters for Surinam in order to document the native tropical nature. Her stay in Surinam was shorter than intended as she had trouble adapting to the climate, but long enough to make a large number of paintings of plants and insects, which were published in 1705 under the title Methamorphosis insectorum Surinamensium. It was dedicated to those who love and study nature and can be viewed digitally via the documents server of the Gottinger Digitalieserungszentrum. EDIBLE GARDEN DE KLINGE >KWEKERIJ DE NIEUWE TUIN WWW.DENIEUWETUIN.BE De Nieuwe Tuin is a small and distinctive nursery where the focus is on a selection of thoroughly edible plants, famed for its diverse varieties of tomato. EXOTEN KEMZEKE >VERBEKE FOUNDATION WWW.VERBEKEFOUNDATION.COM Private art center of Geert Verbeke housed in a former nursery. Experience for yourself how exotic species stubbornly survive.
CLUB DONNY # 2 2008 > 33
DONNY’S FAVOURITES
CORPSE PLANT AMORPHOPHALLUS TITANUM This plant was discovered in 1878 by the Italian botanist Odoardo Beccari in the steaming rain forests of Sumatra. In the growing season the corm produces either a single leaf two to six metres tall, or a gigantic ‘flower’ one and a half to three metre tall. The inflorescence consists of one huge upright yellowish spike, Amorphophallus titanum literally means misshapen giant penis - surrounded by a deep-red bract, similar to a hefty calla. At the base of the spike sits a band of small pinkish female flowers with a strip of light yellow male flowers above it. As soon as the female flowers are ripe for pollination, the spike begins radiating warmth and a foul odor that smells like something between a corpse, rancid cheese and rotting fish. That, by the way, is why the Indonesians call it the ‘corpse plant’. This serves to attract the pollinators, carrion bees. BLOOM LEIDEN >AMORPHOPHALLUS TITANUM A flowering Amorphophallus titanum is rare. In the Leiden botanical gardens and the national botanical gardens of Belgium this occurred on 25 and 26 of August. There are still at least fifteen plants there. Plenty of new chances! YOUTUBE BIGGEST FLOWER IN THE WORLD >TITAN ARUM Short film of a flowering plant in Sumatra with David Attenborough. COOKERY TIPS FROM A (LOST) ALLOTMENT LONDON >MORO EAST, SAM & SAM CLARK The book Moro East follows a year in the life of Sam and Sam Clark on the Hackney Manor Garden allotments in the East End of London. This is reflected in 150 unusual recipes created in collaboration with their Turkish and Cypriot fellow allotment holders who cultivate and cook an extraordinary range of ingredients. This collaboration resulted in mixture of foods they cooked on the allotment with a Mediterranean touch. Unfortunately the allotments were demolished in 2007 to make way for the Olympic Games in 2012 LINNAEUS’ FLORAL CLOCK Linnaeus observed over a number of years that certain plants constantly opened and closed their flowers at particular times of the day, these times varying from species to species. Hence one could deduce the approximate time of day according to which species had opened or closed their flowers. Arranged in sequence of flowering over the day they constituted a kind of floral clock or horologium florae, as Linnaeus called it in his Philosophia Botanica (1751, pages 274-276). A detailed and extended account of this in English will be found in F.W.Oliver’s translation of Anton Kerner’s The Natural History of Plants, 1895, vol.2, pages 215-218. SECRET LONDON >CHELSEA PHYSIC GARDEN 66 Royal Hospital Road/Chelsea/London The Chelsea Physic Garden was founded in 1673, as the Apothecaries’ Garden, with the purpose of training apprentices in identifying plants. The location was chosen as the proximity to the river created a warmer microclimate allowing the survival of many non-native plants - such as the largest outdoor fruiting olive tree in Britain – and more importantly, to allow plants to survive harsh British winters. The river was also important as a transport route that linked the garden to other open spaces such as Putney Heath, facilitating easy movements of both plants and botanists. In fact the garden has always sought to achieve good communications with others working in the same field: by the 1700’s it had initiated an international botanic garden seed exchange system, which continues to this day. THE AALTO HOUSE WWW.ALVARAALTO.FI Riihitie 20/00330/Helsinki In 1934, Aino and Alvar acquired a site in almost completely untouched surroundings at Riihitie in Munkkiniemi. The house was designed as both a family home and an office. The slender mass of the office wing is in white-painted, lightly rendered brickwork. The cladding material of the residential part is slender, dark-stained timber battens. It has a flat roof and a large south-facing terrace. Although the street elevation is severe and closed-off, it’s softened by climbing plants and a slate path. There are already signs of the ‘new’ Aalto, the Romantic Functionalist. The plentiful use of wood as a finishing material and 4 open hearts built in brick also point to this. It anticipates the two-year younger Villa Mairea, a luxury residence where Aalto’s creativity was able to come into full bloom. But in contrast to its larger sister, the Aalto House is a cosy, intimate building for living and working, designed by two architects for themselves, using simple uncluttered materials. RITA VAN DER ZALM NURSERY FOR WILD BULBS, WWW.RITAVANDERZALM.NL Rita and Frans van der Zalm established the bulb nursery in 1967 on the lime-rich and well-drained soil behind the dunes at Noordwijk. The assortment is determined by what they themselves like to grow, fine tulips, botanical narcissi, and many remarkable bulbous plants including 43 sorts of alliums. There are also many ‘stinzen’ bulbs such as wild garlic, bluebells, winter aconite, star of Bethlehem and glory of the snow. 34 < CLUB DONNY # 1 2008
Club Donny is a biannual magazine on the personal experience of nature in the urban environment presented by Frank Bruggeman, Ernst van der Hoeven and Ben Laloua/Didier Pascal. PAGE 01 / 36 Saas-Fee, Barbara Helmer PAGE 02 / 35 Ahmedabad, Millowners’ Association Building 1954 Le Corbusier, Michael van Gessel PAGE 03 Now, Arnoud Holleman PAGE 04 The Purple Podded Marrowfat Pea, Julius Vermeulen PAGE 05 Flower Arrangement, Claudie de Cleen PAGE 06 Dutch Wave, Gaston Bekkers PAGE 07 / 30 Arboretum Trompenburg, Cactus Greenhouse, Frank Bruggeman PAGE 08 / 29 London, Regent’s Park, Germaine Kruip PAGE 09 / 28 Los Angeles, Schindler House, Lisette Smits PAGE 10 / 27 Mechelen, Hans Aarsman PAGE 11 / 26 Parijs, Claudie de Cleen PAGE 12 / 25 Rotterdam, Rochussenstraat, Barbara Helmer PAGE 13 / 24 Copenhagen, Carlsberg Brewery, Bik Van der Pol PAGE 14 / 23 Rotterdam, Kabeljauwsestraat, Bas van Beek PAGE 15 / 22 Apeldoorn, Royal Mile, Ernst van der Hoeven PAGE 16 / 21 Hakone-machi, Ben Laloua PAGE 17 / 20 Rome, Orto Botanico, Bertjan Pot PAGE 18 / 19 Riva del Garda, Latteria cooperativa, Bik Van der Pol PAGE 31 We Are Not Alone, Kirsten Algera PAGE 32 Anders’ Son, René van Pelt PAGE 33 / 34 Donny’s Favourites TRANSLATION / Mike Ritchie PRINTING / Die Keure, Bruges PUBLISHER / episode publishers www.episode-publishers.nl Club Donny mail@clubdonny.com © 2008 Club Donny The authors and contributors. Reproduction without permission prohibited. This publication was made possible by Municipality of Rotterdam Department of Art and Culture.