#215 Netherlands Chapter The Netherlands Visit to Esveld Tree Nursery, Boskoop

At the end of each season, Chapter 215 organizes a visit to an interesting Ikebana related company or museum.

This year one of the board members managed to organize a lecture and a tour at the Esveld tree nursery in Boskoop. The nursery is very special. They have the largest collection of maples in the world. Furthermore, the nursery is located in a very old cultural landscape of narrow fields and ditches. The fields are from 2 to 24 meters wide and 300 meters long. It gives a very special landscape because it concerns dozens of tree nurseries next to each other. The lecture, with slides, was about special Japanese trees and plants. The owner, Mr. Esveld, made several trips to Japan and was, therefore, able to tell and show a great deal of interesting facts.

Then we were shown around the nursery and the collection of maples in a beautifully landscaped park-like part of the nursery. The highlight is a maple that was given by Doctor von Siebold to the great-great-grandfather of Mr. Esveld. It is now a beautiful large tree. The combination of an interesting lecture, the beautiful collection of maple trees and our enjoyment of a delicious lunch on the sunny terrace made this day a great success.