At the end of March, Rijksmuseum Twenthe began the construction of an experimental botanical garden on the side of the museum. The garden is located in the public space at the beginning of Museumlaan and aims, among other things, to contribute to more greenery and biodiversity in the area. The garden will be ready at the end of April and will be open to the public.
The Green Lab
In 2020 RMT started a new programme called The Green Lab, inviting artists who use plants and flowers as 'food' for their work. In the context of The Green Lab, artist Claudy Jongstra developed a paint plant garden in the museum's courtyard in 2020, and by the end of 2021, artist Elspeth Diederix designed an entirely new back garden, inspired by 17th-century woodland still lifes from the museum's collection. Because RMT wants to be more visible with its green projects, it has been decided to create a third garden at the beginning of Museumlaan. This botanical garden is also a new step towards making the area a greener place.
Artist impression of the RMT Botanical Garden
Various biotopes
The new botanical garden, which was designed by garden and landscape designer Stefan Jaspers, consists of various biotopes, each with its own planting. The biotopes are used to tell various stories about our relationship with and view of plants. The botanical garden will consist of a butterfly garden, an edible garden, a dye garden, a garden of stately homes and a weed garden, among other things. But besides indigenous plants, there is also room for exotics, because when is a plant called indigenous and what does that say about its ecological value?
Experiments
For designer Stefan Jaspers, the garden is also a place where he can carry out various experiments, by varying the maintenance, ground cover and soil composition. In the coming months, Jaspers will share his findings via a blog. The maintenance of the garden will largely be done by the museum's garden volunteers. We are still looking for extra people to help with maintenance, see the vacancy for garden volunteers.
