2nd International Congress of Alpine and Arctic Botanical Gardens

More documents

Recommendations

Info

On a beautiful day the view of the mountains is absolutely overwhelming. It is not difficult to understand, that in 1925 the idea of an alpine garden on Schynige Platte came up. Foundation of the Alpine Garden 1925 at a meeting of the Swiss Botanical Association in Interlaken the idea of an alpine botanical garden on Schynige Platte was brought up. 1927 The founders of the “Association Alpengarten Schynige Platte” represented science, tourism and nature conservation. 1930 The garden was opened to the public. Ecological concept of the Alpine Garden The goal of the garden is to show all plants existing in Switzerland above timberline. 16 Maintenance guidebook for the Alpine Botanical Garden on Schynige Platte above Interlaken in the Bernese Oberland Otto and Verena Hegg-Nebiker Alpengarten Schynige Platte / Universität Bern, Switzerland The alpine botanical garden Schynige Platte hopes to bring a contribution to the conservation of species, and when we will make here a progress, our collaborators must know, how their predecessors have worked and what the results of their efforts were. Of course, this knowledge is important for our visitors too, for the beauty of the whole garden. Therefore we wrote a ”maintenance guidebook” with description of every one of the 68 parts of the garden and the works to do there. Horticultural Practices All plants are presented whenever possible in their natural plant-community or very close to these conditions, together with the same plants as in nature. When the natural community is lacking on Schynige Platte, artificial communities are constructed. Only the medical plants make an exception. The effect of cultivation is kept as low as possible, so that our plants could be used as a gene-reservoir if necessary. Experimental field of Dr. Werner Lüdi (1930) 1930 W. Lüdi started his experimental field on Schynige Platte, 300 m SE of the garden and some experiments in the garden it self. This was the second fertilizing experiment of the world in natural vegetation, the oldest at timberline.
His intention was to make the Nardetum, a very poor pasture on acid soil, more productive and with better fodder. He treated 340 squares of 1m 2 in many different ways, especially with different fertilizers. O. Hegg got the results and the data of this experiment in 1975. Later on, he changed the goals of the research. He laid the main interest in species diversity and long lasting influences of fertilization (Hegg 1984, 1992). There are various young scientists gathering new results from this experiment now. One important result for species conservation: Any fertilization is bad for species of nutrient-poor vegetation, and its effect lasts for a very long time. In 2006 we can still see differences in species composition and in ecological measurements for an impact made in 1936, after 70 years (Spiegelberger et al. 2006)! Both, the alpine garden and the experimental field, are of a very high ecological value today, even more in future. Both show the long-term effects of human influence on alpine vegetation. Short look at the garden (see www.alpengarten.ch)Today, visitors can enter the garden directly beside the railway station and walk on 420 m of main paths and ca. 500 m of smaller ones. They do not have to climb on many peaks; they can walk on comfortable paths to find 600 species that means two thirds of Swiss alpine plants, Sum of Species-cover per Group 25 20 15 10 5 0 Seslerio- Caricetum Crepido- Festucetum most in their natural association or planted very close to these conditions. The Garden lies in an altitude of 1975 m and measures about 8500 m2. The whole garden was used as a pasture until 1928. The greatest part shows natural vegetation in about 20 phytosociological associations. Four are very frequent and important: The blue grassmeadow, the meadow of rusty sedge, the alpine pasture and the mat-grass meadow (Seslerio-Caricetum sempervirentis, Caricetum ferrugineae, Crepido-Festucetum rubrae, Geo montani-Nardetum). The other associations are present in small parts in the garden, but most of them in quite typical examples. For species foreign to Schynige Platte, it was tried from the beginning to develop artificial associations (Lüdi 1957). Compared to the plant sociological garden of Tüxen in Hannover (Tüxen 1940), it is much more difficult to establish artificial associations in an alpine environment, mainly because of the topography which changes much more on very short distances. Already in 1928 the construction of the “Urgesteinsfeld” (part with granitic soil) was started, for all plants from the central Alps with their soils poor in Calcium. All these artificial associations give the possibility to show many plants from other parts of the 1928 1939 1997 2008 Seslerion Caricetum ferrugineae Fig. 1. A slope with species belonging to 3 different phytosociologiocal units on limestone was inventoried by W. Lüdi in 1928 and by O. & V. Hegg in 2008. We see for the sum of cover in % for these species groups a decline of the species from dryer vegetation types (Crepido-Festucetum, Seslerio-Caricetum sempervirentis ) and a progress of species of Caricetum ferrugineae, an association of more humid conditions. This is a tendency in the whole garden: to more humid relations, more humus production, more shadow on the soil. We called this the “ferruginization”, i. e. increase of species of the Caricetum ferrugineae. Horticultural Practices 17
Page 1: Proceedings of the 2 nd Internation
Page 4 and 5: 4 Jean Zollinger (1925-2007), La Ra
Page 6 and 7: 6 Experiences with the introduction
Page 8 and 9: Successes and failures Plants which
Page 10 and 11: Fig. 1. The use of new pots and the
Page 12 and 13: depressus, Mulinum microphyllum, Mu
Page 14 and 15: community groups and many other act
Page 18 and 19: Fig. 2. The Geo montani-Nardetum wa
Page 20 and 21: • List of species in the 68 quart
Page 22 and 23: Fig. 1, 2. The northern (left) and
Page 24 and 25: Kongsvoll Alpine Garden is located
Page 26 and 27: No alien invasive species occur in
Page 28 and 29: • The pdf file of the guidebook s
Page 30 and 31: 30 Fig. 4. Flora of the mixed fores
Page 32 and 33: Education for sustainability using
Page 34 and 35: Fig. 4. Part of the master story in
Page 36 and 37: Fig. 1. Presentation board, fixed n
Page 38 and 39: Fig. 3 One vegetation type (Carex f
Page 40 and 41: Raoulia albo-sericea, Leucogenes gr
Page 42 and 43: the second house struggled to maint
Page 44 and 45: Because Prof. Peter from the Georg
Page 46 and 47: investigated the permanent test fie
Page 48 and 49: Phenology Plant life rhythms, as bu
Page 50 and 51: Outlook The projects schedule is to
Page 52 and 53: Among others, the following species
Page 54 and 55: The Garden has collections of ornam
Page 56 and 57: 56 International Plant Exchange Net
Page 58 and 59: Some examples, how IPEN Numbers can
Page 60 and 61: 60 AIGBA, the association linking a
Page 62 and 63: ockeries are planted according to g
Page 64 and 65: • dedicated exclusively to alpine
Page 66 and 67:
France Jardin d’Altitude du Haut
Page 68 and 69:
Session III (Education concepts):
Page 70 and 71:
Name Surname Garden Institution Add
Page 72:
72 2 3 1 14 12 11 19 10 18 15 13 8
show all

2nd International Congress of Alpine and Arctic Botanical Gardens

Create successful ePaper yourself

Delete template?

Save as template?