Het Huus van de Taol has created a fifth season of the Drenthe-language podcast Praot Drents Met Mij in collaboration with RTV Drenthe.
In this podcast, director of the Huus van de Taol Renate Snoeijing talks to well-known and lesser-known Drenthe people about the role that the Drenthe language plays in their lives. In this episode, head gardener at Walmer Castle Philip Oostenbrink is our guest.
Ever since he was born, Philip Oostenbrink has always been busy with plants. His neighbor across the street was a gardener at Beileroord and he learned a lot from that. So when he did a lot of gardening training at Frederiksoord after high school, Oostenbrink was completely happy.
In 1998, Oostenbrink did an internship in England and found life there very well: ‘I really enjoy every experience there’. It was no surprise that she decided to switch to English after eight years of teaching. Initially he worked as a gardener at the wark, but later we became head gardener at Canterbury Cathedral.
Oostenbrink also collects plants. He privately owns a few national collections. We took the cuttings to plant markets and garden fairs, because it is important that those plants come into the garden sooner rather than later. Oostenbrink therefore has a disfavor for Japanese plants, mainly because they often have variegated leaves.
During the corona period, the time finally came to write a book: ‘I always wanted to do that’. And after the BBC program ‘Gardeners World’ recorded its own Japanese garden in 2018, we decided to write a book about it. That’s ‘The Jungle Garden’. Such a tuun kenmarkt zuch door the dense vegetation and foal plants.
The chance that Westenbrink will return to the Netherlands is not that great with all those beautiful tunes in England. And the way of living and living suits him. Yet there is one small chance that she will still come back. And that is if Het Loo Palace ever has a vacancy for head gardener: ‘I think that’s a beautiful garden, I have been there since I was young’.
Tags: Talk Drents Philip Oostenbrink
