This week, June 11 – 17, Terra is organizing a program for an international group of students and teachers. This week is part of the two-year partnership project: ‘Sustainable Gardening for a Shared Future’. The participants are students and teachers from green schools in France, Austria, Latvia, Germany and the Netherlands.
The week is all about the Living Garden, Living Public Spaces. It’s about creating a living garden and public space with a threefold goal:
- Awareness of the added value of the Living Garden for public space;
- Increasing the commercial clout to create and maintain a living garden;
- Being able to propagate the added value of the Living Garden and the Living Public Space.
In short, this means that after following the program, participants look at gardens with different eyes, know why they do something and know how to do it. The point is that the student notices that men can contribute to the climate by, for example, paying attention to the temperature of the theme, water or air quality. This week’s aim is also to highlight the interrelationship between these topics and then bring a more holistic, sustainable approach to the design, construction and maintenance of a garden or public space.
All students have therefore been commissioned to design a facade garden that will be built against the walls of the main and annex buildings of Terra MBO in Meppel. The presentation of their plans is on Monday, the implementation on Tuesday and Wednesday. All the plant material used is sponsored by Pieter van der Linden, owner of Green Sales in Noordscheschut and former student of the Horticultural School Frederiksoord. A number of Rainblocks are sponsored by Broos, Water2Keep. Booiman Gardens B.V. supplied the Green Walls, Groentotaal A. de Boer supplied various materials for mounting the Green Walls systems and Wildkamp supplied the water tanks. The rest of the week there are educational excursions to the Cruydthoeck in Nijeberkoop, Arborealis in Wilhelminaoord, the Drents Friese Wold and Ecostyle in Oosterwolde. The necessary relaxation is sought in Giethoorn; with good weather an attractive place to relax.
(Text and pics by Ilse)
