An English Gardener in a Dutch Historic Garden

Abstract

Laura Gatacre (b.1946) was brought up in a family that farmed and gardened on Exmoor, Devon, and above Portofino, Italy. Since 1978, she has lived and gardened at De Wiersse, beyond Zutphen, the Netherlands (not far from Florence Boom's garden, her first gardening friend in the Netherlands). The estate has been in her husband's family for three centuries. During the last 25 years, Laura has managed the estate together with her husband. She has been particularly responsible for the garden, the animal husbandry, and the archives and drawings of her husband's grandfather, Victor de Stuers, who initiated a national structure in the Netherlands for monuments, museums and archives during the last quarter of the nineteenth century.