Memorial tree for Professor of Landscape Architecture Meto Vroom

Meto Johan Vroom (1929-2019) was the youngest son of Jan Vroom Jr. He studied landscape architecture at the Agricultural College in Wageningen and succeeded J.T.P. Bijhouwer as professor there in 1966. After his retirement in 1994, Meto Vroom published the Lexicon van de tuin- en landschapsarchitectuur. An English and a revised edition would follow later. Meto Vroom was appointed an honorary member by the NVTL and received the Bijhouwer Prize in 2014, on which occasion his book Leren kijken : het Wageningse onderwijs en onderzoek in de tuin- en landschapsarchitectuur, was published.

A tulip tree was planted on the WUR campus to mark Meto Vroom’s 80th birthday. This was a newly cultivated variety named after him and grown at the Bonte Hoek nursery in Glimmen, which still existed, but was no longer owned by the Vroom family.

The pen drawing of Liriodendron tulipifera is part of the collection of botanical illustrations made by the scientific illustrators of the former Biosystematics chair group. The drawings are on display as part of the Botany collection of WUR Image Collections. The collection consists of two parts, the Botanical Gardens Collection and the Perennial Plants Collection.

After the death of Jan Vroom Jr in 1958, the family business was continued by his two eldest sons, Freerk Vroom and Jan Vroom Jr. Jr. In 1968 the firm was divided into the ‘Bonte Hoek’ nursery, the ‘De Punt’ landscaping company and the firm of garden and landscape architects ‘Tuin- en landschapsarchitectenbureau Vroom’. These companies no longer exist. The drawings and other documents of the Vroom family were stored in various locations and were eventually brought together again to form part of Special Collections.