Floriade 2022 & Gardens Mien Ruys

Floriade Expo 2022 in the city of Almere

When you think of the word ‘horticulture’, what comes to mind?

It is not surprising that you would think of words such as ‘shrubs, ‘rake’ or ‘vegetable gardens’. Terms such as ‘sustainability’, ‘liveability’ and ‘a hopeful future’ probably come to mind less quickly, understandably so.

The horticultural sector rarely gets the attention it deserves. A pity, because horticulture is amazing! Above all it is essential to our common future. In a world where nature often has to make way for concrete, glass and steel, horticulture is the key to a liveable world. In our view, those working in horticulture, from the gardener to the asparagus grower, to the technician in the greenhouse, are superheroes. During Floriade Expo 2022 we are giving these heroes the stage they deserve.

Once every ten years, all the horticultural greats gather during this International Horticultural Exhibition. Experts from all over the world come together at Floriade to present green solutions that make our cities more enjoyable, beautiful and sustainable. Within the theme ‘Growing Green Cities’, more than 400 national and international participants showcase their latest green innovations, solutions and applications. From state-of-the-art solar roof tiles to amazing vertical façade gardens and from the best ways to grow tomatoes to the latest pruning techniques. You can see, taste and experience it all at Floriade.

Beside all the inspiring gadgets and innovations, you can also simply enjoy all the natural splendour on the site. You can take a stroll through the many flowering gardens, the inspiring arboretum and feast on exciting dishes or immerse yourself in the varied art and culture programme. There is something for everyone. Children can go on an expedition, parents can taste a wide variety of food and entrepreneurs can exchange their biodegradable business cards and lay the foundation for fruitful collaborations.

Floriade inspires you to live greener and healthier. After a day at the Expo you will go home inspired and full of ideas. For example, how you can enrich your own garden, balcony or living room. In this way you too can contribute to the green city of the future!

Does this sound like music to your ears? Then travel to the greenest and healthiest city of our country: Almere. From spring 2022 Floriade and Almere will be the flourishing centre of the Netherlands for six months. We believe you will love it here so much that you won’t want to leave. Fortunately, Floriade lays the foundation for the future sustainable urban district ‘Hortus’, so who knows...

Floriade offers horticulture the stage it deserves. Come and enjoy green solutions and living in all its forms, scents and colours and be amazed at what horticulture can do for us.

oriade co

Gardens Mien Ruys reopening April 2022

Tuinen Mien Ruys will reopen on Friday 1 April. From Friday 1 April visitors are welcome to gain inspiration or simply enjoy the work of the most famous Dutch landscape architect, Mien Ruys. In 1924, Mien Ruys, who grew up at her family’s plant nursery, started experimenting in her parents’ vegetable garden. She tried out ideas about design, plant combinations and the use of materials, and continued to do so all her life. A walk through Gardens Mien Ruys is a walk through a green and living history book, an overview of almost a century of garden architecture in the Netherlands. A number of gardens have municipal monument status; the oldest gardens have even acquired the status of national monument. The Gardens Mien Ruys Foundation manages this cultural heritage and stimulates new experiments with plants and materials. In the Gardens you can enjoy a drink and snack, and buy garden tools, cards and books. An extensive range of perennials is for sale in the Plantenhof. In the interior space Ruysend Riet, a small exhibition has been set up about colour in the garden. At the same time, Louisiana van Onna (1995) will show an installation of her art project The Butterfly Defect . ouisiana van Onna is a photographer working in The Hague, who graduated from the Royal Academy of Art (KABK) in 2019. With her photography she tries to capture the small things in nature. Climate change and biodiversity are close to her heart; as both a photographer and researcher she hopes to give viewers more appreciation for the transience of nature. The entian blue is a good e ample of this, she e plains it’s is a butterfly that depends on the bluebell gentian and forest ants to survive. Only if all these factors are present in the landscape, the butterfly can live. At the moment it is only present in a few nature reserves in the Netherlands. This butterfly has become something of an icon and ambassador of biodiversity; it’s on postage stamps and streets are named after it, but Louisiana’s generation doesn’t know this butterfly at all. Where once there were so many, this species has declined by 93% in the last 30 years. A blue face familiar to us in the past is slowly disappearing from our landscape, and with it from our collective memory. hotography and film is a great way to explore this development, because it is about literally ‘recording’ its existence. This project thus becomes an attempt to bring the Gentian blue back into our collective memory and our backyard. Workshop Blueprint On several Saturdays in the spring, Louisiana hosts cyanotype workshops, an easy process with a surprisingly beautiful effect. Using a photographic exposure process, beautiful cyanblue prints are made of flora and objects on the spot.

Opening hours: Monday to Saturday 10:00 am to 5:00 pm, Sunday 12:00 pm to 5:00 pm

Entry: €9; children 4-16 years & students €4. Café and shop access free

Moerheimstraat 84 7701CG Dedemsvaart