Harrie Boerhof from Dwingeloo died at the age of 68. He died unexpectedly earlier this week.
Boerhof – or ‘just Harrie’, as he himself preferred to be called – was a familiar face in the municipality of Westerveld. In 1978 he started his gardening company in Dwingeloo. First on the Wittelterweg, later on the honey flakes. In the following years it grew into a format garden center, including nursery and model gardens.
The gardeners blood flowed through his veins at a young age, says his son David Boerhof on behalf of the family. “My father was already with flowers along the road at the age of twelve and from the age of sixteen he already had his own nursery at the farm on Wittelterweg.”
The garden center was sold in 2021, the gardening company received a new owner. “My children chose another profession, so I had no follow -up in the family,” Boerhof said about it later. According to him, the industry had also changed. “You could buy plants on every corner of the street.”
The family did, however, remain the owner of the complex in Dwingeloo. In 2022, stainless theater ended up in the building, last summer the theater company had to move. Boerhof wanted to have four large homes built on his site, a plan that he had in his head for years.
His background as a gardener also came back in those plans. Boerhof did not want wooden fences, but rather green garden boundaries with a lot of biodiversity. The stream next to the plot also had to be extended, so that future residents could, for example, lay a scaffolding. Despite objections from a few local residents, the city council agreed with the plan.
In recent years, Boerhof has also been involved in plans for a renewed gardening training in Frederiksoord. That training would be housed at what was the very first horticultural school in the Netherlands in 1885. With pain in the heart, Boerhof and the other volunteers finally put a line through it.
Boerhof said at the time that the working group consisted of volunteers and that there was too much time in it. “We found, and still think it is great plans,” he said about it at the beginning of this year.
The Dwingeler also set his neck out for Armenians. That started after he met a boy from that country who was staying in the asylum seekers’ center in Geeuwenbrug. The refugee came to work with him in the garden center. Boerhof then started to delve into the country and also walked along with a memorial march of the Armenian genocide in Assen. He also went to the country several times to offer help and set up agricultural projects.
In addition, Boerhof was also coordinator of the Drenthe aid actions of the Frisian riders. That is an organization that drives to Ukraine with auxiliary voyage. The Frisian riders started this fairly soon after the Russian invasion. Boerhof himself also went to Ukraine. “I drove my daughter Evelien there with a bus full of medicines and relief supplies. And we have taken refugees from Ukraine back.”
The gardener was also in the news last year because he removed a piece of Drentor from forgotten. In the so -called Bunkerbosje in Wittelte layers of trenches and bunkers from the Second World War. Thanks to Boerhof – and a little money from the province – the war memorial was refurbished and made accessible to the public.
Boerhof could also be heard weekly in the Radio Drenthe program for a few years Coffee and chatting. In it he gave all kinds of tips to properly maintain your garden.
His commitment to his company and the community was possible because his wife and family gave him that space, son David explains. “He could do this through the support of our mother Gerda. He provided a place to land for Dad and she was always ready to catch him.”
At home his father loved socializing, David looks back. “He always liked people around him, loved good food and time for each other. On vacation he always came to rest after three days because he worked so hard.”
His commitment to the community now and then had an impact on his family, David explains. “But we also enjoyed it. It was nice to see how Dad everyone came to the rescue and how everyone was welcome. How he was the driver of projects, how he could activate people and push further than people sometimes thought. And no matter how hard something could be, he could put things into perspective and always saw the positive in a situation.”
The funeral of Harrie Boerhof is next Monday.