Confection and individuality
Written by: Saskia de Wit
Mien Ruys’ Ready-Made Borders as Building Blocks for Rooted Gardens
Mien Ruys (1904-1999) was a pioneer of modern garden architecture. She was politically and socially enthusiastic, and a champion of interdisciplinary cooperation; she worked with architects and urban designers, and strived to ensure that landscape design could contribute integrally to urban planning. Much of her work takes place in and around social housing and can still be seen in Amsterdam Nieuw-West. Working at a time of renewal and reconstruction, her creative mind guaranteed many innovations in garden design, such as the invention of gravel tiles, the use of discarded railway ties - which led her to thinking about reuse - and ready-made borders.
Thanks to these ready-to-wear borders — standardized, simple, cheap and accessible to everyone — the democratic ideal that the Western Garden Cities were based on could be extended to the private garden. But gardens are not a mass product. Gardens are specific, they mark a unique place, a means of expressing the relationship between us, where we are and the world. How do these ready-to-wear borders relate to gardens as an expression of the specific location?
Green networks in the Western Garden Cities
The plans for the Western Garden Cities focused on community building; it was about living, but also about development, relaxation, education, encounters and games. The ideal was to create a timeless democratic architecture that contributed, as Van Eesteren called it, “to a healthier and happier environment for people”. (1933) Green played an important role in this: for the first time, the idea of a full-fledged living environment was linked to the structuring and furnishing of open green space, changing it from a privilege of few into a matter of course for everyone. “In the 1930s, modern city dwellers were expected to enter into an active and recreational relationship with nature. Expansion neighborhoods needed wide streets and squares with lots of plants in the form of street trees, parks and gardens. [...] Like the hierarchical traffic system, the green branches out from the polders, sports grounds and nature reserves via parks, park lanes and gardens to “courts and gardens” to bring people into contact “with relaxation and nature”. “Supervisors were appointed — Wageningen professor J.T.P. Bijhouwer for Slotermeer and Mien Ruys for Slotervaart. They worked on various issues: the choice of plants, the degree of openness and continuity, the coordination with architecture and types of buildings, the transition from private to public [private garden, communal court, public green] and the desired austerity in design tools that was in line with the urban ideology of the New Building. (Van den Berg 2016, p. 11)
The green reconstruction task
Where in the decades before the war, the main target group for landscapers was still the individual, wealthy client with his villa garden, the emphasis switched to the public task; the landscape designer's main task lay in the realization of a modern (residential) landscape. “All attention was paid to public housing and even this was secondary to industrialization and agricultural innovations.” (Kamphuis 2007, p. 68) Within the enormous reconstruction task — the new construction of extensive districts and neighborhoods — all attention was paid to the communal garden. “Here, the local residents were able to meet each other and their sense of community would fully develop.” In Nieuw-West, too, the focus was on public courtyards and easily accessible parks. The greenery in the Western Garden Cities is designed as continuous green from the home to the large scale of the landscape. Most homes in the Western Garden Cities are located on a communal courtyard, or a green court.
Frankendael: designing with stamps
An iconic example of how Mien Ruys gave substance to the new challenge of green spaces in social housing can be found in the design for the collective courtyards in the Frankendael district of the Watergraafsmeer (1933). (Fig. 1) Led by the Department of Urban Development, designers from various disciplines worked together to achieve shared ideals: promoting social cohesion through a coherent design of home and outdoor space.
The residents were able to meet each other in the green courts and carry out joint activities there. The 'stamps' or templates provided a fixed and logical connection with backyards on the north side and front doors on the south side, a playground in the most sheltered corner and a quiet bench for elderly people on the other short side, so that everyone had their own domain. The garden was bordered to the street by a wide hedge. A few trees, loosely scattered in the grass and regular bushes in the corners. Director of Urban Development van Eesteren had a clear idea about the layout of the courtyards, and was of the opinion that all courtyards should be identical. “Equality was one of the spearheads of socialism: individual design would just encourage competition.” (Den Dulk 2017, p. 133).
But although Mien Ruys was able to work well with the logic of a stamp, she countered van Eesteren by insisting on making different plants, believing that variation would increase familiarity and thus strengthen social cohesion. “Here, it's mainly the plants that can give each block its own character. In one garden, more trees come together in groups; in the other, we put a single tree. One block blooms in yellow, orange and blue, the other in pink, carmine and purple. ' (Mien Ruys, “Green space in the residential area.” Lecture for Housing and Urban Planning, Den Bosch 1952, cited in Den Dulk 2017, p. 133). Within the uniformity of the stamps, there was great variation in planting plans, so that the characters of the gardens vary from garden-like to park-like.
Gardens in the Reconstruction Period
The social role of landscape and urban green design took precedence, and private garden design faded into the background. “Although more and more people ended up with a garden of their own, those gardens grew increasingly small.” (Kamphuis 2007, p.68) In an article on planting, F.J. Hooftman wondered aloud: “Will the modern city dweller’s private garden completely disappear, with all greenery in front and behind the house laid out communally by the council?” (1947, p.102) In the extension plans of the AUP (General Expansion Plan), private gardens were nowhere to be seen.
Yet in practice, large numbers of single-family homes with front and back gardens were realised in the post-war neighbourhoods. (Fig. 2) The ideals of light, air, and space still included the garden, as a place of fresh air and natural light—but within the framework of family life. The garden was to keep the man of the house from heading to the pub after work, and to keep the children from loitering in the street. Following a long tradition, the garden was still seen as a green antidote to stress and illness, and now also as a buffer against the chaos and pressure of urbanisation. According to Mien Ruys, even “the smallest garden can foster greater understanding of the plant world, and build a bond between urban dwellers and nature, enabling them to live more happily—even in our big cities.” (Ruys 1961, p.7)
Gardens for the People
These new gardens were no longer the domain of garden and landscape architects; the new homeowners couldn’t afford a designer or a gardener. “Apart from the standard set-up—paving, a lawn with a washing line, and a path from the back door to the shed—residents were left to design the garden themselves.” (Kamphuis 2007, p.69) People wanted a garden, but how should it be laid out and maintained? A handful of garden architects tackled this question. Hans Warnau, for example, argued in his series in Goed Wonen for the simplest possible gardens, tailored to individual needs. “Think first about what you want to see and do in the garden. Find the best place for that. Only then decide on the shape of what you want to make.” (Warnau 1958, quoted in Kamphuis 2007, p.70) “The pre-war, labour-intensive ornamental garden was abandoned in favour of one that prioritised relaxation, well-being, and a compact connection with nature. […] The post-war garden had to be practical and tailored to the owner’s specific needs.” (Kamphuis 2007, p.74) The densely planted ‘display garden’ with showy, clashing cultivars was replaced by coherent, spatially composed plantings in clearly defined groups.
This aligned with the modernist thinking in landscape architecture. Where gardens, parks, and public spaces had once been designed around axes, symmetry, and ornament, the focus shifted—mirroring developments in architecture—towards functionality and use. Beauty was now linked to space and purpose, rather than to symbolism or narrative meaning.
Onze Eigen Tuin (Our Own Garden)
A highly influential initiative was the founding of the magazine Onze Eigen Tuin (Our Own Garden) in 1955 by Mien Ruys and her husband, publisher Theo Moussault. (Fig. 3) It presented ideas for simple gardens—even the tiniest ones—with low-maintenance, attractive plantings. Importantly, the plants did not dominate the space but supported the garden as a usable outdoor area: for living, playing, and hanging laundry. “Ruys was the only one trying to apply modernist ideals to garden design: developing good, affordable garden designs and materials for all layers of society, just as good and affordable social housing was achieved through system-building and standardisation.” (Kamphuis 2007, p.72) In the 1950s and 60s, Onze Eigen Tuin had a major influence on private garden design, with a circulation of 100,000 copies within just a few years!
The magazine’s educational and idealistic tone fit the spirit of the times. Goed Wonen had been launched seven years earlier, offering residents of new districts examples of how to furnish homes and gardens in practical, aesthetic, and hygienic ways—under the guiding principle that “taste is a matter of education.” Through sleek, multifunctional furniture, orderly layouts, and hygienic new materials, residents were meant to get the most out of their homes—and themselves.
Ready-Made Borders
All these articles helped make garden design accessible to laypeople, creating "good" gardens for small spaces without a professional designer. But while most people could decide on garden layout with common sense, designing a border required expertise. Every location and condition calls for different plant choices and combinations. This is where Mien Ruys’ idea of ‘prefab borders’ came in: a series of ready-made planting schemes for specific conditions. “That way, even gardeners with limited means—unlikely to hire a garden architect—could create a border suited to their garden’s needs.” (Den Dulk 2017, p.188)
These borders had “a well-defined recipe of robust and reliable species, in fixed combinations, tailored to specific, clearly described conditions.” (Kamphuis 2007, p.80) Their composition was balanced in terms of colour, flower and leaf form, bloom succession, and height—featuring strong plants that required little maintenance, didn’t spread aggressively, and remained attractive before and after flowering. Many were tested in Mien Ruys’ experimental gardens. (Fig. 4) “Some consisted of standalone, reusable planting groups, while others were finely tuned modular combinations allowing for maximum standardisation. The standard or ready-made border was not bespoke, but good quality prefab.” (Den Dulk 2017, p.188)
The Idea of Ready-Made Borders
The concept of ready-made (or "off-the-shelf") borders did not stand alone but instead brought together two distinct contemporary developments: the social and technical evolution of serial production, and the botanical shift from thinking in terms of individual species to plant communities. The term “ready-made borders” explicitly referenced the clothing industry, which, through mass production and standardised design, brought affordable and quality garments to the market (Kamphuis, p. 80). This trend of standardisation in clothing and household goods extended into the construction industry. Thanks to new industrial system-building methods, buildings could be produced rapidly. “Repetition is a characteristic of modern production methods,” said Van Eesteren. Mien Ruys worked closely with modernist architects from the groups 'de 8' and 'Opbouw', who explored the possibilities of standardised construction, and she chose to follow their example.
At the same time, botanists, plant breeders, and garden designers began to view plants differently: “inspired by the botanical attention to plant communities, horticulture developed the concept of ‘ornamental plant communities’.” Much like natural plant communities—species thriving together in the same environment—designers began to consider balanced combinations of ornamental plants. Increasingly, planting choices were determined by specific garden conditions, such as soil type, position, and orientation (Kamphuis, p. 80).
The ready-made borders were sold at a fixed price by Moerheim in Dedemsvaart, the nursery owned by her father, Bonne Ruys. When he established the nursery in 1888, working with perennials was still relatively novel, and the nursery played an important role in the development of Dutch garden design. He also produced his own catalogue of perennials—likewise a new phenomenon in the Netherlands. In 1916, the nursery was expanded to include a garden design department “which advised the public in selecting and arranging planting schemes for gardens and parks” (Moerheim catalogue, 1916). When Mien Ruys introduced the ready-made borders, the catalogue served as the primary medium of distribution. One simply had to indicate preferences and site conditions, and the plants were delivered in crates—complete with planting plan and maintenance instructions (fig. 5).
The ready-made borders were also presented in Onze Eigen Tuin (Our Own Garden), as modular units that could be freely combined. An entire garden could be composed using 2x1.5 metre perennial modules, 1x1.5 metre rock garden modules, and 3x2 metre shrub modules, supplemented with filler modules, hedge modules, and vertical planting modules featuring climbers such as roses or firethorn. Mien Ruys wrote: “With the included garden plans, anyone can create or redesign their own garden. The floral mosaics make it possible to play with colours and forms, even without any expertise. Just as a child enjoys playing with Meccano, we can now play with these blocks and strips, which ultimately form a living, colourful flower mosaic in our own garden year after year” (Ruys, 1955, p. 4–5).
The Garden as a Specific Place
The accessible, ready-made borders extended the democratic ideal of quality housing for all into the realm of the garden. However, the reasoning Mien Ruys used in her design for the communal gardens in Frankendael—that difference is necessary to foster recognisability—touched upon a characteristic of gardens that ready-made borders cannot fulfil. Gardens are a means of expressing a specific place and our relationship to it. They are “the reference points and markers we create in a contemporary landscape over which we have no control” (Desvigne and Dalnoky, 1995, p. 96). As such, a garden can serve as a reference point in the landscape—specific and unique, even if only to its owner. Ideally, a garden is an interpretation or transformation of its site, revealing hidden qualities of the (urban) landscape, making it legible and tangible, and offering it a new expression. The form of the garden—its spatial design and materiality—enables a place to be experienced: the garden as mediation between person and landscape (De Wit, 2023, p. 25).
Regardless of the time period, or the geographic, technological, or social context, people will always need places with which they can identify—this is essential to who and what we are as human beings (Casey, 1996; Malpas, 1999). To gain existential orientation, we must be able to locate ourselves and know where we are. Spatial differences and qualities such as form, colour, temperature, or texture help create a mental image of the environment. We must also be able to identify with our surroundings to understand how we relate to a particular place. This allows us to relate our experience to what we know and remember. Human identity presupposes the identity—the distinctiveness—of a place. Identification is the foundation for a sense of belonging (Norberg-Schulz, pp. 18–23).
Edward Relph described the relationship we have with specific places as “the intimate and specific basis for how each of us connects with the world, and how the world connects with us” (2008, preface to reprint). He described the most profound experience of place as a deep, unconscious immersion in it—an experience familiar to most people when they feel at home in their community. The opposite is a sense of strangeness and alienation, often felt by newcomers or those returning after time away, who feel uprooted when the place is no longer what it once was.
A location is perceived as a place when three conditions are met: it must stand out from its surroundings, be visibly rooted in its context, and have a connection through personal stories and memories. As a defined “inside” within a generic “outside,” a place can serve as a refuge—an ideal world, removed in time and space, sheltered from everyday life. To feel “in” a place is to be here rather than there, safe rather than threatened, sheltered rather than exposed, at ease rather than anxious (De Wit, 2018, p. 41).
Gardening: From Generic Building Blocks to a Specific Garden
To experience the garden as a place involves both perception and interaction. “Experiences do not arise from your armchair. Walking through a wild landscape requires attentiveness, which makes daily thoughts, plans, obligations, and worries fade into the background, along with the sense of time. Gardening—or observing bees or swaying grasses—demands the same kind of unfocused attention” (De Wit, 2023, p. 25). With the influx of new gardens during the post-war reconstruction era, personal gardening also became a new development, encouraged by the rise of garden centres and the introduction of numerous new products for the DIY gardener—from tools to fertilisers.
The act of gardening is reflected in the gradual transformation every garden undergoes. In fact, change is an inevitable and inherent characteristic of gardens. A garden “can only exist by virtue of human care, dedication, and attention. It is not merely a spatial construct, a place of habitation, or a representation of nature—but also the product of cultivation; the tendency of plants to change over time makes a garden dependent on ongoing care: anticipating and responding to natural processes. A garden is an active interaction between the gardener, the soil, and the plants” (De Wit, 2023, pp. 23–24). The dynamics of natural systems ensure that a garden is never finished—it continues to develop beyond its initial layout, taking on different appearances, spatial qualities, and ecological values over time as a result of growth and decay.
Because plants are living organisms, the balance and stability suggested by ready-made borders can only ever be temporary. Even with the stable plant selections used by Mien Ruys, changes were inevitable over time. Purchasing and planting the border was only the beginning. As a tree grew larger, it might cast too much shade for sun-loving species, which would eventually need replacing. Some plant groups would spread while others would contract, altering proportions. Impulse buys from the garden centre and gifted plants might be added to existing borders. Children would cut corners through beds until they were eventually replaced with lawn.
Gardening generates physical change in the garden—but perhaps more meaningfully, as a repeated act of care and attention, it takes on the nature of ritual. According to Catherine Bell, rituals create order, explain its origins and nature, and satisfy the human need to experience that order in the world around us (Bell, 1997). The gardener, through repeated actions and visible outcomes, becomes more and more connected—consciously or unconsciously—with the place.
Conclusion
Although theory and public discourse primarily focused on collective and public green spaces as a means to connect with nature and community, the private garden remained an essential element. It offered a space of shelter, ease, play, and cultivation. Ready-made borders enabled even inexperienced gardeners to give form to these gardens. But that alone does not make them gardens in the truest sense—places rooted in their location. Given the nature of plants as living, transforming, and dying organisms, ready-made borders were mere snapshots—a foundation upon which the process of growth and cultivation could begin, eventually turning a garden into a true place. It is through play, togetherness, and gardening that the transformation occurs—from generic, ready-made borders into a rooted, specific, and personal place.
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