Garden herbs

PostNL will issue the Garden Herbs framed stamp sheet on September 7, 2026. This colorful framed stamp sheet features ten popular Dutch garden herbs, including basil, mint, rosemary, and oregano. The botanically illustrated herbs are surrounded by a wild garden full of flowers, plants, insects, and recognizable elements from the kitchen.

The stamps depict ten garden herbs: basil, chives, rosemary, mint, sage, tarragon, parsley, dill, thyme, and oregano. These are the ten garden herbs most commonly used in the kitchen in the Netherlands – which is why they are also known as culinary herbs. All ten are depicted very realistically and stand alone, and each features the same background color. Surrounding them on the stamp sheet is a colorful, atmospheric fantasy garden with a wilder composition of grass, plants, flowers, insects, and various cooking utensils.

DESIGN

Stamp sheet

Designer Margot Holtman: 'I initially envisioned a set table, viewed from above, with ten plates depicting the garden herbs. However, I felt that design lacked the garden element. Therefore, I drew a wild garden on the edges of the stamp sheet, which I filled in freely—not just with a bee, a butterfly, flowers, and other natural elements. Because garden herbs are used in the kitchen, I added elements suitable for cooking, such as a whisk, a ladle, a fork, olive oil, and a pepper mill. Since the stamp sheet is being released at the beginning of autumn, I also included a pot of pumpkin soup. The style of the garden drawing contrasts strongly with the botanical illustrations of the garden herbs.'

Stamps

'To start with, I selected the ten herbs. I was a chef for many years alongside my work as an illustrator. The depicted herbs are the most widely used in the Netherlands, all year round. The eleventh in that series, coriander, was dropped. That is a pity, but there are simply ten stamps. I drew them very precisely as you might find them in a vegetable garden and used a light green background against which they stand out beautifully.'  

Illustrations

For several years now, I have been drawing a lot digitally on the iPad. This allows me to work in even greater detail because you can zoom out on the drawings. It is still traditional work; I add all those small strokes and hatchings that I often use myself, but with the various pens and brushes from the Procreate program.

typography

The title 'Tuinkruiden' and the name of the designer are written on the iPad and therefore bear the handwriting of Margot Holtman.

About the designer

Margot Holtman (1984) creates detailed and refined drawings, often characterized by the extensive use of cross-hatching. Nature is her favorite subject. She obtained her bachelor's degree from the Gerrit Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam and a minor in Illustration at the Pratt Institute in New York. Subsequently, she participated in various residencies , including on Madeira, in New York, and in Leipzig. Her work has been shown in various group exhibitions and magazines ( Mystical Miles , Tummy Magazine ). In addition, she worked as a cook until she achieved a breakthrough with her illustrations in the column 'De aard van het beestje' in de Volkskrant, for which Casper Janssen wrote the text. She received the 2024 Nature Book Prize for the eponymous book published based on those columns. Currently, she primarily illustrates children's books, such as the Das Droog series, which she creates together with her sister Dagmar Holtman, but she is also working on a book for adults about poisonous animals and plants, for example. She previously designed the Garden Insects stamp sheet (2024).

Source: PostNL Press Release.