[English version below]

…Maar, weest wat ut is ju? De meensen late de natuer gewoan nyt mear hur gang gaan. Ut mut altiten wear anders. Nim nou dese tún…

Earst ston ut hyr achter ut hús helendal fol met gebouwen. Stallen en skuren. Dat hè ik wel us siën op un ouwe kaart. En de rest fan ‘e tún was foar groente en fruit. Maar toen de moade feranderde, hè se alles ôfbreke laten. Dat was in ‘e pruketiid.

Toen moest ut allemaal in netsise patroanen, met rechte padsys en netsys knipte hagen. Vierkanten, dryhoeken en andere geometrise formen. Un ‘Frânse tún’ noeme se dat. Ut was wel mooi hoar, maar met natuer had ut ferder niks te maken. En nou is de moade wear anders en wil menhear Telting dat syn hele tún un soart “Engelse landskap’
wurdt. Met fan dy kronkelpadsys en bomen en struken wêrfan ut lykt asôf ut der sumaar wat kriskras planten is.

Maar as je goëd kieke, dan gaat ut wear allemaal om ‘sichtlinen’ en ‘flakferdeling’. En kiek nou us naar dy perken! Sien je dy hele kleine hoogteferskillen? Jou dinke tòch nyt dat suks ‘sumaar’ su is?
Ut is allegaar su bedoeld. Maar weet je wat ik nou ut mooiste fyn? Dat is wannear je hyr in ut foarjaar komme. Dan stikt ut hyr werkeluk fan de sunoemde ‘steensebloemkes’. Dat binne plantsys dy hyr al ééuwenlang groeie. Dy trekke hur gelukkug fan geen enkele moade wat an.

Martenatuin – gardener Durk Roorda (1839) – timeless nature

(in the middle of an argument) …But, you know what it is? People just don’t let nature do its thing. There are ALWAYS things to be done differently.
Now, take THIS garden… In the beginning, here behind this building, there were lots of stables, sheds… I’ve seen it on an old map. And the rest of the garden was reserved for vegetables and fruits.

But when fashions changed, they had everything demolished. That was in the ‘wigs time’. Everything had to be redesigned into patterns, with straight pathways and neatly pruned hedges. Squares, triangles and other geometric shapes. ‘French’ gardens, they were called. Oh yes, they looked nice, but they had nothing to do with nature.

And now fashion changed again and mister Telting wants to convert his garden into a kind of ‘English landscape’! With meandering little pathways and trees and bushes that appear to be planted randomly.
But when one takes a good look, it’s all about sighting lines and the segmentation of surfaces. Look at those lawns and borders! Do you see all these very small height differences? You don’t think that’s coincidental, do you? It’s all designed that way.

But do you know what I like the most? That’s the early spring here, when the stinzen flora – country house flora – really starts to bud out. Little plants that have been growing here for centuries. And that do not care about any fashion whatsoever!