The end of the year was a period of intensive activities for the „Green Stories“ project. After the most important project purchases were made, work on establishing an outdoor exposition of historical plants in Palūšė village, Lithuania, began right away in November.
At the end of the year, the employees of Directorate of Aukštaitija National Park and Labanoras Regional Park visited the territory of the future exposition and discussed the ongoing work.
The managed territory has been unused and overgrown with a natural meadow until now. After the exposition is completed, the space will be adapted for the public use for the purposes of environmental education and raising knowledge of historical and rare plants. The formed green spaces will reflect the plants historically grown in the territory of Aukštaitija National Park and Labanoras Regional Park, in urban, rural and manor homesteads. Three plant groups will be exhibited in separate green spaces, highlighting the diversity of cultivated plants. The plant list will be drawn up taking into account the inventory research of historical plants carried out during the project.
Alongside the historical plant expositions, modern green spaces will be created, integrating historically used plants with those used nowadays. These three exhibits will aim to show visitors that the old and the new can blend perfectly and create a highly modern, profound and unexpected image thus promoting the old species.
Meadows will be seeded on the edges of the territory, which will demonstrate how to sustainably and modernly manage larger areas around homesteads. This method is sustainable and nature-friendly, as it allows creation of new and expansion of existing ecosystems of insects, plants, animals and microorganisms. Part of the seeds for the meadows were collected during a volunteer campaign in Aukštaitija National Park this summer, when about 5 kg of wild grass seeds were collected from the slopes of Ginučiai Hillfort.
An outdoor education space – a gazebo – will be set up for educational events planned during the warm season.
This year, we managed to implement most of the work, so after sleeping peacefully through the winter, the garden will be colored with a variety of plants next spring, and in the summer, it is planned to invite the first groups of schoolchildren and visitors to participate in newly created educational programs about the historical plants of the region.
The works are part of the project “Green Stories. Society education and raising public awareness on the importance of flora to humanity” (No. LL-00188). The project is funded under the 2021-2027 Interreg VI-A Latvia-Lithuania Cross-Border Cooperation Programme.