Caption
In order to promote the garden culture, there was a "festival of gardens" held in the Kamp valley in Lower
Austria during 25th of May and 25th of June. The most different gardens could be visited: old palace gardens, propagation gardens and private gardens which are otherwise not public accessible.
This panorama shows the public garden of the association “Arche Noah” in Schiltern, a small village, which developed to a center of gardening in Austria during the last years.
That somewhat inconspicuous, perhaps little spectacularly looking garden has an important function and a beautiful history:
25 years (1990) ago the association “Arche Noah” was founded by house gardners and farmers. Four years later the propagation garden in the fallow-lying baroque garden of the castle of Schiltern was put on. Starting 1992 the preservation colletion is now one of the biggest privately run collections in Europe!
The visitors - in the previous year nevertheless 60,000 - can become acquainted with cultivated plants of most diverse kinds, visit guidance or meetings, purchase herbs, bio vegetable plants or rare fruit pieces for their own gardens.
Particularly if we think of the future generations, we should support such projects. Many species of fruit, grain and vegetables have already disappeared from our life. For example the apple: Around 1900 there have been approximately 3000 - 5000 different sorts of apples in Austria. Today there are only 400 - 500 left. 10 to 15 of them can be found in our supermarkets. This problem concerns however not only the apple in Austria, it concerns plants all over the world.
See more garden-panos at my
"festival of gardens" page.
Infos about the association "Arche Noah" at their
website (in german).