Deep in the Belgian countryside between the historic cities of Gent and Bruges, the private garden Chris enjoys at home together with wife Anne and their 16 year-old twin children is a wonderful showcase for his talents. Its effortless natural beauty is a perfect reflection of Chris’s personality. 

This place is a warm, homely environment where you enjoy the experience of being at one with the nature that forms it – a living testimony to one of the lessons the young Chris learned from his mentor Andre van Wassenhove.

“It is important to learn and make connections between things” says Chris. This comment applies not only to the connections in nature, such as the beauty of butterflies and other pollinators, but also the way we connect with our gardens to use them as an extension of the family home.  Chris’s belief is that a garden should be a place you live in as a functional recreation space, not just a piece of art to admire from a distance.

Visits from pollinators are considered an integral element in garden design. You can see these and more pictures on Chris's website www.chrisghyselen.be

A quick tour of Chris’s garden demonstrates this in many ways. There are places to explore, places to relax and places to enjoy the food the garden yields, both from plants and from the resident chickens.

Perhaps the most beautifully innovative example though is Chris’s swimming pond. No, this isn’t a case of misinterpretation, Chris Ghyselen has a swimming pond in his garden.

“I like to swim with the fish and the plants” he explains.

The swimming pond, in April

A picturesque 1.5 metre (5ft) deep pond adorned with water plants and alive with goldfish is the place where Chris goes swimming. Wife Anne is quick to point out that Chris loves being in his pond so much that he is almost certainly the first and the last outdoor swimmer in Belgium every year.

Despite the fact that Chris doesn’t go out to court attention for his garden, it has been featured in numerous publications, including a book by famous Dutch gardener and writer Modeste Herwig, who happens to be the daughter of an also famous father, Dutch plantsman Rob Herwig. Rob Herwig may be a familiar name because he wrote the first ever encyclopaedia of perennial plants.

Essentially, this remains the private family garden, but a few lucky people (including this fortunate Darwin PlantSpotters reporter!) get the privilege of visiting each year.

Open garden days can be fun!

Potential clients of Chris’ design business may be invited here to be shown examples of ideas and to discuss plans, but apart from that, public visits are generally restricted to about 6 small groups per year organised by plant societies.

Chris Ghyselen's garden is hidden behind these hedges

However, if you want to visit the garden, then make sure you are around during the Flanders open garden weekend. This event, organised by the local farmers' organisation, takes place each year during the last weekend of June and offers the opportunity to visit many private gardens in the Flanders region of Belgium.

Up to 2000 visitors have been known to visit Chris’ garden during the course of this weekend. It is really a local affair, but a few in-the-know people make the journey from The Netherlands, Germany and France and other parts of Belgium.

Chris demonstrates how he relaxes in the garden

The Open Gardens of Belgium also offers the possibility of a visit to Chris's garden. Under this scheme a small selection of gardens of superior quality are opened on various weekends through the year. With less gardens on display at one time, this attracts fewer visitors than the Flanders weekend so is ideal if you prefer quality over quantity. E-mail info@jardinsouverts.be to ask for more information about this.

If a trip to Belgium at the right time doesn’t quite fit into your agenda or suit your pocket, then you can still check out Chris’ gardens through many beautiful photographs on his own website, www.chrisghyselen.be (Dutch only).

Brunneras mixed into the streamside border. Varieties are planted together and left to 'play', as Chris describes it, to see what new seedlings will be created.

As well as being the family garden, this is also the place where Chris breeds and tests out his new varieties. If you ever wanted to describe a new plant variety as having been borne into a loving home, then this would be the setting!

Breeding and selection work may be going on all around the garden, but apart from the potting shed and a greenhouse (something Chris is extremely proud of having wanted one all his life!), evidence of this work is noticeable in only a small area set aside for observing potential new varieties.

After all, in the real world you see your plants mixed together with others in the border, so isn’t this the best way possible to check them out!?

Brunneras mixed under trees in this shady border bring welcome spring colour