A secret garden in a hidden corner.
Especially for this corner in the Agnietenstraat, where there is hardly any sun, Elspeth Diederix created a shade garden with a 'folly'.
A folly is a structure without a function, a decorative joke by a (garden) architect. Sometimes overgrown and often already designed as a ruin, the folly is a symbol of mortality. You see them a lot in English and French landscape gardens from the 18th and 19th centuries.
For Elspeth Diederix, Las Pozas was also a source of inspiration, a huge sculpture garden full of follies near Xilitla, Mexico. Edward James, an important collector of surrealist art, designed Las Pozas between 1949 and 1984.
Diederix' folly is a staircase that disappears under thick roots, like a portal to a parallel world. She made the stairs and the plant roots out of ceramic. Ceramic is clay baked at a very high temperature, often glazed for protection, which provides color and shine at the same time.
The garden has been a source of inspiration for Diederix for a long time, she is also a gardener (gardener). This is how she created her own Miracle Garden, a public garden in the Erasmus Park in Amsterdam.
She photographs the flowers that grow in her garden in such a way that they get something magical. Like they're small miracles. Hence the name Miracle Garden.
Using her knowledge as a gardener, Diederix chose plants for this corner that can withstand moisture and shade, especially ferns (ferns in English). Here you will find French fern, kidney fern, horseshoe fern, pickle, common ear and Solomon's seal, among others.
Elspeth Diederix's garden with stairs forms an accidental but beautiful parallel to Birthe Lehmeijer's Vanishing Staircase at the back of the museum, on the Singel. Go and have a look there too!
Fern Folly can be found in Agnietenstraat, about 50 metres to the left of the museum entrance.