Cuyptuin, Roof Top Blues in Amsterdam

Het begint weer voorjaar te worden. De sneeuwklokjes bloeien en de vogels beginnen weer te zingen. Maar dit jaar zingen niet alleen de vogels, ook de politici komen weer uit hun holletjes gekropen en hun deuntje mee te zingen. Het is namelijk verkiezingstijd en in verkiezingstijd zoeken politici leuke onderwerpen waarmee ze de voorpagina’s van kranten, tijdschriften en webpagina’s kunnen opleuken. En welk onderwerp doet het in grijs en grauw amsterdam in het voorjaar natuurlijk het beste: Groene daken ! De amsterdammers snakken naar meer groen om zich heen en grijpen elk stukje balkon, gevel en dak aan om plantenbakken te plaatsen en bloemen en planten om zich heen te kunnen voelen. Maar helaas worden diezelfde amsterdammers het leven zuur gemaakt door ambtenaren die ook voor het laten groeien van planten en bloemen hun boeteboekjes volop weten te trekken.

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The Green tower I had build was inspired on quite some other projects I had found on the internet. The most inspiring one was of Folke Günther with his Folke Wall. I lost his website for quite a while and just found it back. I send him an email with some photo’s of my own experiment and I was delighted to found it answered’. I will come back on that, Folke !

I like your crater idea! The general principle is very much like the one Gus Nilsson used originally. letting the water trickle down through two-chambered building stones placed crosswise as your craters. I suppose that you realize that they can be extended to a more wall-like building, lacing the crtes beside each other. I would propose two improvements to your wall: (meer…)

We had quite a stormy spring here in Amsterdam. The two small trees (Acer Cappadocicum Rubrum) had grown very hard the last few years and I already start wondering if they had been ankered well enough by the gardener who created the garden. She had put tree poles around both trees, but with only 50cm depth they didn’t had a solid base. So during the storms I saw the crowns of both trees bending deeply and one morning both trees had fallen down completely. (meer…)

This week I started to build the greentower that I had in mind already for quite a while. I am looking for a way to ‘green’ and hospitilize the way to big and unpleasant terrace, but without losing to much room on the terrace itself. The answer on the question ‘how to save room on the ground’ is easy, namely by using space in the air. The idea is to overspan a big part of the terrace with a pegola en to grow this from the garden and from plant containers. But big climbing plants need big containers, but my theory is that this space can also be sought in the air as on the ground. The greentower is build with old post sorting containers in a construction of wooden beams and iron shelfs. The green tower is bond together with iron wire and kept right up with steel pipe and tightening belts.
I keep information on the project posted here