Garden modules
Making planting plans has always been an important and essential part of Mien Ruys' work. With her enormous knowledge of plants and the composition of planting combinations, she was, like no other, able to compose plantings that were both colorful and attractive all year round, but also simple and easy to manage.
Flower cubes
In the 1960s, Mien Ruys developed standard borders. She designed perennial borders for different types of soil, for sun and partial shade, in different sizes and colour themes. When customers came to the nursery for a perennial border, a border could be picked from the 'catalogue' based on soil type, location, size and colour preference. These packages consisted of a box with plants, a plan and a booklet with the description for construction and maintenance. Not haute couture, but excellent ready-made: she called them ready-made borders. For factory sites and care institutions, she developed 'repetitive borders'. These were planting plan parts that could be repeated to create borders of up to a hundred metres long. Here too, she worked with strong, healthy perennials that required little care and maintenance.
Making planting plans is still an essential part of all Buro Mien Ruys projects, in which Buro Mien Ruys is distinctive. In line with the ready-made borders and the repeating borders, a new planting concept has been developed in the context of the centenary of the Tuinen Mien Ruys: 'the flower blocks'. These are planting modules of 1.20 x 1.20 meters and are intended for greening front gardens. By removing a block of 4 x 4 pavement tiles and planting it with a flower block, you can contribute to greening streets. The blocks can be linked together like Lego bricks and any desired size or shape can be made. Each block has a planting with species that are strong and healthy, even 'vandal-proof' and of course also easy to maintain. The plant combination is attractive all year round due to the variation in color, bloom, leaf shape, texture and evergreen accents. Extra attention is paid to the use of nectar plants. Last winter, all 7 were planted in the Gardens in Dedemsvaart and can be seen there.
The municipality of Hardenberg (which includes Dedemsvaart) started an ambitious project for greening and sustainability last year. In addition to green facades and planting trees, greening front gardens is an important part of the vision. The Tuinen Mien Ruys and the municipality of Hardenberg are now working together. The municipality encourages residents to green their front gardens, there is a subsidy available and the Tuinen Mien Ruys helps residents with the implementation: in the Tuinen residents can see the result, order the plants and now the box of plants is also accompanied by good information about construction and maintenance.
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