NL /EN This project by Marijn Bax consists of a publication and audio work. All images and sounds are from the garden of Ank van Peski, Heesterlust, in Leidschendam, the Netherlands.
Ank originally started this place as a shrub nursery in 1974. From 2004 onwards, she transformed the terrain into a self-designed garden with a huge diversity of plants, trees and flowers. Her vision “no lawn, but water”, resulted in the Cascade in front of the house and the Grand Canal at the back. She owes her extraordinary knowledge partly to her mother who was also a garden architect, her formal education at horticulture school Huis te Lande and her experience at Boskoop sale nursery, but most of all to decades of her passionate day-to-day work with these species.
For three years I walked the many paths of this two-hectare garden: a long and narrow stretched piece of land descending thirteen feet into de meadows of the Dutch peat-land area. Here I watched, wondered, observed, photographed and recorded the human hand at work. Step by step I became more aware of the visual, physical and mental interplay of the depth and layers in this enchanting garden and the need of gardening.