Mien Ruys | |
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Born |
Wilhelmina Jacoba Ruys 14 February 1904 Dedemsvaart, Netherlands |
Died | 9 January 1999 Dedemsvaart, Netherlands |
(aged 94)
Nationality | Dutch |
Wilhelmina Jacoba Moussault-Ruys (14 February 1904 – 9 January 1999), was a Dutch landscape and garden architect. Her gardening legacy is maintained in the Dutch town of Dedemsvaart, which is home to the Tuinen Mien Ruys. With people such as Piet Oudolf, she is considered a leader in the "New Perennial Movement."
Mien Ruys briefly studied garden architecture in Berlin in the 1920s, and spent time in England as well (Tunbridge Wells); her father was a friend of Gertrude Jekyll, from whom Ruys is supposed to have learned some things about colour. During World War II she studied engineering in Delft, but then returned home to work and experiment at her father's company. Ruys's father, Bonne Ruys, founded the Moerheim Nursery in 1888 specializing in perennials in the bogs near Dedemsvaart, near Zwolle, in the east of the Netherlands. Ruys's business quickly grew and in the first half of the twentieth century had become the most notable nursery in Europe for perennials. She was the younger sister of Anna Charlotte Ruys.
Her home Moerheim House in Dedemsvaart
Beginning in 1924, Mien began experimenting, making small gardens of perennials on her father's land, and soon became as interested in the materials for building gardens as the plants in them. These experiments were the foundation for the Tuinen Mien Ruys and helped her become one of the most notable landscape and garden architects of the Netherlands. Ruys also studied architecture with Marinus Jan Granpré Molière, a noted Dutch architect and landscape planner, and worked with architects such as Gerrit Rietveld, a collaboration which is still celebrated in Bergeijk, where Rietveld designed a factory, Weverij de Ploeg, surrounded by a Ruys-designed park.