Domies Toen

How many plant varieties can just under one hectare hold? In Domies Toen in Pieterburen, there are 950. This museum garden is a colourful example of a garden with winding paths; the Groningen variant of the English landscape-style garden. The gentle humming of insects is the only sound you hear.

Domies Toen was created prior to the 17^th century, next to the Petruskerk church in Pieterburen, which used to be the Vicar’s garden. Not only because he liked gardening in his leisure time, but because he also worked as a farmer. This combination was not uncommon in those days. The parsonage has since disappeared, and a tearoom is established in a Neo-Gothic building where religious education took place. Admission to the garden with winding paths is a few Euro.

All kinds of plants and flowers grow and bloom in Domies Toen, such as in the rose beds, flower meadows and box hedges. But the garden is best known for its stinsen plants; plants that are not indigenous to this area. Instead they were planted as ornamental plants on country estates and parsonage gardens such as this one. They then went wild and conquered a place of their own in the regional countryside. Although most stinsen plants bloom in spring, Domies Toen is also one of the most beautiful places in north-west Groningen in any other season. The huge variation of plants ensures that something is flowering in any time of the year.