About us

Matthé and Helma Sjamaar, both keen gardeners. We met at work in 1982 and married in 1986.

While living in Utrecht, we had a small garden. Helma had an allotment nearby but we were both longing to ‘escape to the country’ and to have more land.

In 1994 we were fortunate to find a cottage in the village of Schalkwijk and we started gardening on a larger scale (over 4000m2). Our passion led to De Pullenhof, a garden successfully open to visitors.

We were sure we would keep on gardening at De Pullenhof  ’til our dying day’. But the combination of  long days at the office (Helma), old age (Matthé) and maintaining a large garden (Helma and Matthé) became too hard for us. This made us decide in the autumn of 2018  to leave.

We count ourselves lucky in finding a promising new project in Ternaard. Over 3800 m2 come with this former rectory. So, as in 1994, we can indulge in planning and planting a garden one more time. And of course we’ll keep in mind it must be less labour-intensive than it was at De Pullenhof.