Gardens: Bringing Beauty and Comfort to Our Lives, Part 3 of 3

Today we’ll look at historical and modern forms of gardening in Germany, along with its neighboring countries of Austria and the Netherlands. One famous German garden is Sanssouci Park, located in the historical city of Potsdam, near Berlin. Sanssouci and its gardens became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1990, and it’s now visited by over two million people each year from all over the world. Similar style gardens can also be found in Austria, a country that not only shares the German language with its larger neighbor but a lot of its culture. Some of its most charming gardens can be found at the famous Schönbrunn Palace in Vienna, Austria’s capital city.

Schrebergartens, which are also called Klein Gardens or Garden colonies, are tiny plots of land, usually located on the edges of cities, which people can rent for a small fee. Since the 1950s, Schrebergartens have been used by urban dwellers primarily as an escape from the crowded cities, and they are becoming increasingly popular among young Germans as part of the positive shift away from consumerism, and towards a greater environmental consciousness and desire to grow their own food.

But what about densely populated cities that don’t have the space for allotment gardens? Dutch architect Stefano Boeri, in the city of Utrecht, has a solution. His “Wonderwood” project consists of constructing a 90-meter high “vertical tower” which will house 10,000 plants of 30 different species. It will also provide about 200 apartments to help solve the city’s housing shortage.

In Germany, the city of Stuttgart has been subsidizing rooftop gardens since 1986, and over 60 percent of the city’s area is now covered in vegetation. This highly successful project has been shown to significantly improve the city’s air quality. Dr. Rob Roggema, Professor of Spatial transformations at the Hanze University of Applied Sciences in the Netherlands, says that it’s possible for urban regions to provide 100 percent of their residents’ food, provided people are willing to change their diets and support the project. “And, on this area, if you use that for agriculture production, we can feed 25 percent of the total population of Amsterdam.”