The Netherlands (Part 2): The Dutch, plants, and the future of cities
The Dutch and Plants
The Netherlands is the largest global exporter of flowers and known as the ‘Flower Shop of the World’. It is no surprise that this love of plants infiltrates the general public and has become part of everyday life.
Everywhere you walk in a city like Amsterdam, it feels like someone has put a plant in a humble pot to brighten up their corner of the city.
Residential planting at the Het Schip social housing complex
Stitteneiland, Amsterdam
At Stitteneiland, a newly constructed residential street in the heart of Amsterdam, community planting in raised beds green up the pedestrianised public space. The street has a relaxed, community-spirited air about it, the plants helping to provide divide up the public space to create privacy, seating areas, and shade in hotter months.
Stitteneiland, Amsterdam
Vertical planting pockets have been installed along the street. Aside from looking great and introducing more greenery, the plants break up the long stretch of brick facade of the apartments, create screening, and a physical barrier between houses.
Vertical planting at Stitteneiland
In the image below it is clearly seen how residents use containers to extend the existing planting areas to create personal, private spaces with furniture outside their apartments. It is so effective in personalising your house in what could be a very uniform, visually repetitive space.
Container planting extends existing planting areas
Garden Centres
Even in the depths of winter tuincentrums (garden centres) are busy and whilst the Dutch relationship to tulips is well known, I hadn’t realised how popular gardening is in this country. Perhaps one reason for this is the affordability and variety of plants on offer.
Garden centre near Gouda
I visited a non-specialist, everyday garden centre near Gouda and was taken aback by some of the stock. Hoards of olive trees, perennials, house plants, all perhaps at a third of the price of that in the UK. It was hard to resist!
Abundant perennials on sale
The olive trees on sale here really amazed me. Something you don’t often see at your average garden centre let alone in this volume.
This olive tree must have been older than any one visiting the garden centre, available for around £650.
An ancient olive tree for sale
A great offering of house plants on display show the Dutch interest in bringing plants into the home.
Planting for parking
The Netherlands is famed for its approach to giving pedestrians and cycles priority on roads and throughout the urban environment. As Bicycle Dutch states:
‘…the way Dutch streets and roads are built today is largely the result of deliberate political decisions in the 1970s to turn away from the car centric policies of the prosperous post war era. Changed ideas about mobility, safer and more livable cities and about the environment led to a new type of streets in the Netherlands.’
[Bicycle Dutch Oct 20th, 2011]
In 2018 local elections, the political party GroenLinks won a landslide victory in Amsterdam, the reasons for which were in some part down to pledges such as their promise to remove 10,000 parking spaces from the Amsterdam streets by 2025. The plan was introduced as an environmental and welfare driven directive:
“The car-free centre plan stems from its wish to embark upon a ‘radical greening of the city to keep it liveable for ourselves and our children.’”
[Dutchnews.nl Sept 14th, 2017]
People don’t give up cars easily, but a number of measures have been put in place to try to meet this bold pledge. For instance, if streets are redesigned from scratch, no new parking bays are offered to residents; once a parking permit expires, a new permit is not issued.
So what happens to all the new space given up by the car park spaces?
Some converted space, certainly on redesigned streets is given over to pedestrian zones, play areas, and cycling infrastructure, however areas for planting have become part of the green policy in the city. The image below is an example of just a small space that has been converted into green space, but in some areas of Amsterdam whole streets have been converted into zero-car zones. This initiative can only be beneficial to city dwellers, in terms of health and well being, as well as much under pressure pollinators. The Netherlands I feel are really leading the way in how to create green, enriching cities that we need in the future, and plants have a huge part to play in it.
Parking space converted to planting space
References
https://www.amsterdam.nl/projecten/houthaven/deelproject/afgerond/#hf6b780c6-4619-4fe2-a9ca-3ca80c5f182b
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mXLqrMljdfU
https://www.dutchnews.nl/2017/09/groenlinks-wants-car-free-amsterdam-to-scrap-10000-parking-places/#:~:text=The%20car%2Dfree%20centre%20plan,takes%20place%20on%20March%2021.
https://bicycledutch.wordpress.com/2011/10/20/how-the-dutch-got-their-cycling-infrastructure/
