“Green monuments (historic monumental compositions of greenery) from an integral part of Dutch cultural history and the Netherlands can pride itself on a unique tradition of man-made landscapes in which green monuments are preeminently the outcome of the interpenetration of nature and culture.”

In December 1982 ICOMOS adopted The Florence Charter of 1981 on Historic Gardens http://www.international.icomos.org/charters/gardens_e.pdf to complement the Venice Charter of 1964 on the Conservation and Restoration of Sites and Monuments. http://www.icomos.org/venice_charter.html

Article five of the charter describes the historic garden as;

“As the expression of the direct affinity between civilisation and nature, and as a place of enjoyment suited to mediation and repose, the garden thus acquires the cosmic significance of an idealised image of the world, a “paradise” in the etymological sense of the term, and yet a testimony to a culture, a style, an age, and often to the originality of a creative artist.”

Article eight says;

“A historic site is a specific landscape associated with a memorable act, as for example, a major historic event, a well-known myth; an epic combat, or the subject of a famous picture.”

Also of interest to everyone with a concern for green spaces of the urban and suburban kind is clause four of the dutch Declaration of Arhem http://library.wur.nl/speccol/decarnhem.html;

4)”Green monuments call for an integral, interdisciplinary, coherent approach to be taken by owners, stewards, governing boards, garden and landscape designers, historians, urban planners, architects, ecologists, botanists and trained gardeners.”