The promotion of biodiversity in urban areas has recently gained in political importance. Diverse gardens and parks offer a mosaic of different habitats. There is also a growing awareness that measures aiming at increasing diversity in gardens and parks help to improve the quality of life in urban areas and adapt cities to future climate change scenarios. However, by focusing on cities alone, we often tend to forget that even in rural regions, with intensive agriculture, diverse gardens and parks must be preserved, promoted and developed for biodiversity.
The reduction of pesticides and bought-in fertilizers, as well as the careful cultivation of soil, maintains overall soil health and promotes biodiversity in urban and rural landscapes. Private garden associations often do not have the financial and professional resources to offer further training in these areas. The diversity of gardens also requires a wide range of perennials, shrubs, seeds and seedlings from organic cultivation. Today, there are only a few large organic farms that sell their ornamental plants in the wholesale trade. One reason for this is that training on organic horticulture is often not anchored in the training of gardeners for commercial cultivation and that operational conversion advice and further training courses are rare. This limits the possibility of attracting new producers and suppliers of organic plants.
FiBL has already laid the foundations for diverse gardens and parks with past projects, but further measures are needed. The green space on the FiBL campus could also play an important role as a place for teaching and learning about garden diversity.
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