Keep off the grass

Some people like grass. I mean, the kind that is greener on the other side of the fence.

Lawns are a matter of great pride in many residential layouts. “House with a lawn” is a sort of status symbol. There are people who claim to have bought flats in a particular apartment complex because of the beautiful lawns that they saw in the marketing brochures. Maybe the green carpet gives the feeling of being at the golf course. So, it is not surprising that they go up in arms if the children are found running around or sitting on the grass. A few weeks ago, I saw this complaint e-mail about how the gardeners were planting shrubs on a part of the lawn to “reduce their maintenance work”.

Grass is being replaced by shrubs

The cradle of the Dutch tulip

Tulips are found all over The Netherlands and parts of Europe, but when one talks of them, Keukenhof, with its millions of colourful flowers is the place that comes to mind.

Keukenhof, April 2018

Not many would be aware that the first large collection of tulips was brought to the Netherlands and successfully cultivated by Flemish botanist Carolus Clusius, in the Hortus botanicus, a garden laid out in premises of the University of Leiden, for education and research purposes.