JP Thijssepark Garden Guide

The JP Thijssepark in Amstelveen, just south of Amsterdam, is one of the most important early expressions of naturalistic planting in the Netherlands. It is a “heempark” — a public park built around native and wild plant communities rather than conventional bedding — associated with C.P. Broerse and, in its later development, with B.J. Galjaard.

The park is composed of water, peaty soil, woodland edge and open glades, planted to feel like an idealised slice of Dutch nature. Paths and narrow bridges lead visitors through a sequence of intimate, changing plantings, and the whole park is designed to shift dramatically through the seasons.

For garden travellers, the Thijssepark matters because it shows naturalistic planting decades before the movement became internationally fashionable. Much of what later designers explored — plant communities, seasonal change, ecological awareness — is already present here in an unusually pure form.

Why the JP Thijssepark matters for garden travellers

The Thijssepark is a key root of the Dutch naturalistic tradition. It demonstrates that a garden can be built from wild plant communities and still be highly designed, composed and beautiful.

It also shows the particular character of Dutch naturalism: low, watery, intimate and closely observed, shaped by the flat peatland landscape rather than by grand vistas or formal structure.

What to look for

• native and wild-plant communities used as ornamental planting
• water, peat soil and woodland-edge conditions
• intimate paths, narrow bridges and changing views
• strong seasonal change, from spring woodland to late-summer growth
• the sense of an idealised Dutch nature
• the ecological thinking behind the planting
• how design and wildness are held in balance

Garden character

The JP Thijssepark is intimate, watery and quietly radical. It is not a garden of borders and bedding but of plant communities and atmosphere, and it rewards slow, close looking.

Visiting the JP Thijssepark with GardenTours.com

On a Dutch Wave garden tour, the Thijssepark helps explain where the movement came from. It sits naturally alongside Vlinderhof and the work of Piet Oudolf as part of the longer story of Dutch naturalistic planting.