URBAN GARDENING FOSTERS GOOD-NEIGHBOURLY RELATIONS
Enjoying common activities amidst urban greenery
Gardening connects people! A wide variety of gardening programmes have proven a resounding success: Over 1,000 Viennese are realising their dream of cultivating a garden in the city. No matter whether it’s about collectively cultivating flowerbeds or vegetable patches, caring for portable raised beds or greening one of Vienna’s many tree pits – people communicate and interact. And this is the objective: bringing people together and strengthening human interaction.
“Gardening for a Better Neighbourhood” is just one successful initiative in this field. wohnpartner provides portable raised beds and communal gardens for municipal housing estates because they offer important places of encounter for residents. Tenants enjoy the responsibility for plants entrusted to them, since this allows them to take part in social life, facilitates intergenerational communication and moreover benefits the environment.
wohnpartner supports and promotes these programmes actively and thus installed around 350 portable raised beds and 10 communal gardens between 2011 and 2019.
For further information (in German)
https://wohnpartner-wien.at/zusammenleben/gaerten-garteln
Currently, around 880 tree pits across the city are greened by volunteer citizens in the context of the GB* (Gebietsbetreuungen Stadterneuerung) initiative “Gardening Around the Corner”. More than 30 years ago, residents of the Stuwerviertel neighbourhood (2nd municipal district) began to green the tiny patches around trees along avenues and in urban squares.
Today, these flowering micro oases can be found all over Vienna. The GB* offices inform, advise and support aspiring urban neighbourhood gardeners with expert know-how and practical suggestions, so that many more tree pits can be transformed into small individual oases in public space.
For further information (in German)
https://www.gbstern.at/themen-projekte/urbanes-garteln/garteln-ums-eck/
“Welcome to the Neighbourhood Garden” is another, equally successful GB* project. In the context of this initiative, the GB* offices inform, advise and assist neighbourhood projects that increase the quality of life in densely populated quarters of Vienna and strengthen good-neighbourly relations in urban renewal zones and major urban development areas.
In addition to communal neighbourhood gardens, participants also have access to “open gardens”, where flowerbeds and vegetable patches are not assigned to specific individuals but cultivated collectively.
For further information (in German)
https://www.gbstern.at/themen-projekte/urbanes-garteln/nachbarschaftsgaerten/