A Coastal Garden by the North Sea: Roses in Summer, Tulips in Spring

This Dutch garden in Oostkapelle, on the coast of the North Sea, is primarily dedicated to roses. It houses an interesting collection of both antique varieties and modern hybrids. However, in spring, while the roses are still budding, the garden comes alive with vibrant fireworks of tulips in various shapes and colors.

The owner of this garden, Hetti van Balen, enjoys experimenting with plantings and changes the color schemes in her flowerbeds with bulbs every year. As a result, her garden looks different each year.

Tulips, daffodils, and hyacinths are Hetti van Balen’s true spring passion. From June until the end of the season, the air in this small garden is filled with the scent of roses, which also set the color palette for summer. Spring is dedicated to bulbs, and each time, the garden’s owner experiments with different color combinations.

Over the years of working with spring flowers, Hetti has established one rule: “Always buy twice as many bulbs as you think you need.” Achieving a truly impactful effect requires a dense planting in broad strokes. Thus, over the nearly forty years that Hetti has owned the garden, she has planted countless thousands of bulbs.

As a child, Hetti spent a lot of time in her grandfather’s garden, and her father also cultivated flowers and vegetables. Therefore, as she grew up, she dreamt of having her own beautiful garden. In 1980, she was able to fulfill this dream when she and her spouse acquired a cottage and a 10-acre plot near the sea in the Dutch province of Zeeland.

Hetti approached the creation of her garden with great enthusiasm. It was impossible to tackle the overgrown plot, covered in weeds (or to be more precise, heavy clay soil, quite unusual among the local sandy soils), without it. She spent the first few years improving the soil: she dug it up before the frost set in, and in spring, she added well-rotted manure and sand.

Like many in the Netherlands, Hetti appreciates geometry and symmetry in her garden. For many years, the structural basis of her garden was a boxwood parterre. However, unfortunately, a disease caused by the fungus Cylindrocladium buxifolia, which decimated boxwood plantings throughout the country, did not spare her property.

Now, the place once occupied by boxwood borders in spring is filled with vibrant rows of tulips. The regular flower beds remain, and the garden in the inner courtyard resembles a French parterre in structure. Arches formed by intersecting paths, once part of the parterre, are adorned with climbing roses. These include the varieties ‘Blush Noisette,’ ‘Madame Alfred Carriere,’ ‘Jasmina,’ ‘Constance Spry,’ and ‘Felicite Perpetue.’

Along the fence, which is painted black, just like the shed, roses such as ‘Fantin-Latour,’ ‘Blanchefleur,’ and ‘Tapis Volant’ grow.

But in spring, of course, all the “seating areas” in the garden are adorned with bulbs. This includes container compositions ranging from terracotta pots with tulips and hyacinths to woven baskets with daffodils and grape hyacinths. Any containers can be used for flowers, including tin buckets and even an old salt shaker.

Although Hetti enjoys changing the color schemes of her spring flowerbeds, bright red and yellow shades are always present in the flower borders. They stand out against the white walls of the house and the black fence.

In summer, the flower borders take on softer pastel tones when the pale-yellow rose ‘Windrush’ by David Austin, the pale-blue geranium ‘Mrs Kendall Clarke,’ and the purple columbine ‘Alba’ bloom.

Next to the house, from the street side, there is a path made of seashells, a common material for covering paths in seaside gardens.

In the raised bed, a ‘Doyenne du Comice’ pear tree grows, and in spring, it is surrounded by tulips—this time in white, red, and yellow lily-flowered varieties.

Both the roses in the flower borders and the tulips are often victims of nocturnal visits from deer that frequently venture from the forest into the town. Hetti says that they have a taste for the succulent young shoots of roses and the petals of tulips, so she sometimes has to get up at night during spring to shoo away these unwelcome animals. What wouldn’t one do to protect beloved flowers!