Jacqueline van der Kloet

Garden Designer

Jacqueline van der Kloet designed the spring bulb display for Lurie Garden.

Jacqueline van der Kloet is an internationally-acclaimed garden designer and one of Holland’s best-known gardening authorities. She is a plant specialist whose advice is sought by designers and landscape architects. Her designs are prized for their beauty, naturalized schemes, bold uses of color.

Van der Kloet’s client list includes some of the most prestigious public gardens in the world. In North America, she teamed with Piet Oudolf for innovative plantings at New York’s Battery Park, New York Botanical Garden, and Chicago’s Lurie Garden. Her work across Europe and Asia ranges from Holland’s famous Keukenhof, to the palace Huis ten Bosch in Nagasaki, Japan to the Newport Bay Club at Disneyland, Paris. Her work includes many private gardens and frequently contributes to international exhibitions.

Jacqueline’s garden designs are stylish and eclectic, with a relaxed, spontaneous feel that belies the artistry behind her plant placements. Her gardens feature inspired, often impish, mixes of perennials and bulb flowers with blooming shrubs and trees. Her compositions surprise and delight. Her palettes are soft yet compelling, catching the eye and capturing the imagination.

Gardeners around the globe now use a naturalistic bulb planting technique she developed in her home garden – flower bulbs mixes are first mixed then handfuls are gently tossed and are planted where they fall, randomly as if planted by nature. Her most recent book is A Year in My Garden chronicles the monthly developments in her home garden, which is a source of joy and a site for design experimentation.