What to steal from Amsterdam

Last week I went to Amsterdam and I was blown away.

Normally when I go on vacation I’m pretty amped to come back to the city, but this time it was a little different.

The canals. The bikes. The greenery.

The urban planning was just out of this world, and I left wanting to bring so much of Amsterdam right with me to New York.

From an urban rewilding perspective, there were two strategies in particular that stood out as being reproducible in the city.

1. Climbing Plants — rather than spending a ton of money on fabricated living walls, so many buildings just had climbing plants grow up their facade.

   On street level there’d be a tiny little cut out, maybe a bamboo stick for initial support, and then that was it…

2. Container Gardens — Like pretty much any city, Amsterdam had spots on sidewalk and tree pits that weren’t used. Instead of letting it be, though, people just took advantage of the space with flowerpot container gardens.

   

   Flowerpots on Street Level

   

   Pots on boats

   
   It felt like there were mini-gardens EVERYWHERE — around tree beds (“Boomspiegels” — a lot were just planted in pots around the tree bed rather than directly sown in the ground), at street level, on balconies, and even floating on canal boats.

It was incredible to see, and it left me feeling inspired about what we could do here at home.

Till next week,
Mayank