Differentiated Management

The differentiated management (sometimes qualified “harmonic management” , “durable management reasoned” , “durable evolutionary management” , “reasonable management” according to the cities) is a way of managing the Green areas in urban medium which consists in not applying to all spaces the same intensity nor the same nature of care.

According to this approach which takes as a starting point technique agricultural traditional or by soft management such as Prosilva , it is useless, even ecologically nonrelevant from example systematically to mow and often all surfaces enherbées, which results in obtaining only one same medium (lawn shaves), almost monospecific, i.e. banal and very impoverished in Biodiversité, developing only few ecological services, not very useful for fauna, except some invasive species or ubiquists (the starling for example).
La differentiated management, in this case will propose that certain less attended spaces, on the more fragile, or ecologically invaluable ground are left with them-even, are mown or extensively grazed, possibly even once every two years on certain parts in order to preserve at it “refuges” for the biodiversity and a greater diversity of landscapes, whereas others are intensively mowed because of their functions; the example extreme that of the football field being intended for the approved competitions.

This logic is often accompanied by an increase in the rate by vegetalisation, wooded surface and of a reduction (or suppression) of the use of the Pesticide S and Weeding S and of the export of the products of mowing and size (towards unit of composting, horticulture, agriculture.) or of their local use (Mulch, fragmented Wood raméal , Composting on the spot, etc)

It has three main aims :

To rationalize the management of the green areas and the assignment of the essential resources
To improve quality of life and of use by diversifying landscape qualities and the offers of Amenity S
To restore, preserve and manage the environment, by limiting the artificialisation, the Pollution S (manure, pesticides, pollution induced by the machines) and the disturbance and by supporting diversification of the mediums and the species, as well as the expression of the natural processes of maintenance and cicatrization of the Biodiversity, to develop the ecological services and the Amenity S offered by the green areas or mediums semi-natural.

This management can profit from an approach in ecological network, sometimes called green Trame or natural fauna will then be regarded as an auxiliary of management that one seeks to make circulate on spaces. In a very artificial context often the manager also takes care to limit the expansion of species invasive or invading.

Introduction

Any urban development or périurbain artificial calls a follow-up for its perenniality. The vegetation evolving/moving constantly and naturally towards a theoretical stage climacic or in answer to the local constraints (including pollution, of surfrequentation, etc, the control of its development is necessary; moreover, the managers seek to maintain or improve the esthetic value of space and to answer an increasing demand of Naturalité, but also of accessibility. In order to meet these sometimes contradictory aims, a plan of differentiated management can emerge from a reflection on the functions of spaces towards or semi-natural and the scenarii of future maintenance.

This novel mode of management appeared in the years 1990, said “ differentiated management ”, wants to be a more ecological and alternative management with horticultural management intensive, standardized and standardizing. It integrates elements of defense and restoration of the Environnement and implies another technicality, as well as the diversity of the answers of management in order to respect the various mediums and needs for the flora, of the uses in vegetalized public spaces, while preserving a concern of the esthetics of the forms and vegetable successions.
Sont concerned on a daily scale stock management, the limitation of induced pollution, recyclings, then, from the point of view of the biodiversity, recognition and the expression of the potentials ecological, the taking into account of elements of flora and fauna savages and/or spontaneous, the revalorization of spaces and mediums until now forsaken, even polluted.
Ce novel mode of management calls competences of various people and organizations, such of the engineers ecologists, landscape designers, local collectivities, regional natural parks…

This article present:

methods relating to the installation of such a plan of management,
the management engineering differentiated according to the types of spaces,
some examples of parks managed in this way.

Methods relating to the installation of a differentiated management

To conceive a project for a differentiated management

The decision to manage a space in a differentiated way is initially an economic choice, since such an induced plan of management of the less frequent interventions and thus a minimized cost. This choice also answers a social request, because the management differentiated then durable from the public green inheritance constitutes the leaven of type a new of city park, revealing of a greater participation of urban nature in the operation of the cities, urban centres and even of the planetary environment on the one hand and, on the social plan on the other hand, of a report/ratio different from the townsman with his public spaces, supports of forms and écosymboles of nature-refuge idealized.

The human intervention being very limited in the case of differentiated management, it is important to take into account the characteristics of the ground (standard of ground, exposure, sunning…) and of its environment as well as its resources (in particular out of water).

In addition, the choice of the plants influences considerably the maintenance of arranged space. Indeed, the endemic plants or which are put up with the conditions of the medium will not need to be helped by the Man to develop correctly and remain in good health, while species requiring of the complementary contributions (plant health water, organic matter, products…) do not fit absolutely in the search for adequacy with the environment.

As example, one can retain that the landscape designer Beth Chatto carried out a garden with White Barn House (Essex), including various types of habitats, without no watering. Located on a ground in waste land equipped with a source, this garden immediately allured the creative one, which preserved the majority of the trees in place and added others of them to protect the unit from the strong winds. It planted little by little species appropriate to the site, associating them in an ecological way.

Since the years 1970, the concept of “ecological gardening” evolved/moved, passing from the use of indigenous plants to the association of plants coming from various areas, but sharing identical needs.

Thus towards the end of the twentieth century, an new approach of the paysagism became ripe. It results in fact from an evolution, uninterrupted, which connects some large landscape designers of the time and leads to durable experiments to the university of Weihenstephan, in Germany, on the herbaceous and long-lived plants. These personalities were interested in the development of a habitat favorable to the plants and, more recently, their autonomy. This idea was especially applied to the long-lived ones that one often avoided, especially in second half of the twentieth century, when maintenance became a key question in the public gardens and deprived.

alternative methods with the plant health products

words of the biological fight

The official definition (of the OILB-SROP) stipulates that the biological fight is “the use of living organisms to prevent or reduce the damage caused by ravageurs”. The principle is simple: The biological fight is based on the exploitation by the Man and for his benefit of a natural relation between two living beings:

the target (of the fight) is an undesirable, devastating organization of a crop plant, bad grass, parasitic of the cattle… ;
the agent of fight (or auxiliary) is a different organization, generally a parasite, a predator or an disease-causing agent of the first, which kills it in the more or less short term while being nourished some or at least limits its development.

- If the auxiliary is an animal, it is about biological fight, or fight by entomophagous . The auxiliary can be vertebrate (Bird or insectivorous Poisson) or a Nematode; in the majority of the cases, it is another Insect. The predatory ones (which kills and eats several preys during their development) are distinguished from the parasites, which live at the expense of a single host, which dies after the completion of the development of the parasite. There exist egg parasites, larvae, nymphs. Their biologies are extraordinarily varied and the relations host-parasite are very complex, including hormonal exchanges and interspecific chemical messages.

- If the antagonistic organization is a micro-organism, one speaks about microbiological fight . The auxiliary disease-causing agent can be a Mushroom, a Bacterium, a Virus, a Protozoon. It infects the host by ingestion in general and has a form of resistance enabling him to pass - and to remain - in the medium (ground, foliage, litter). The disease-causing agent multiplies in the host and causes his death by fabric destruction, by septicaemia, sometimes by the emission of a toxic substance (case of the Bacteria). The corpses of the host release the disease-causing agents in the medium.

- If the antagonistic organization can, following its contribution by the Man in contact with the target Insect, to develop and to be maintained at the expense of this Insect, without requiring a new intervention, one is in the case of the biological fight by acclimatization . Thus is it when one calls upon entomophagous or with an exotic disease-causing agent against a ravageur previously introduced or naturally arrived of another area of the sphere. In the event of successful acclimatization and of sufficient effectiveness, the biological fight is carried out all alone, the auxiliary becoming an effective and permanent agent (over many years at least) of the repression of the ravageur. The initial effort is particularly well developed. One is in the case says sometimes traditional biological fight.

- If the antagonistic organization must be released or inoculated (in great number) with each time the manpower of the ravageur grows dangerously, one is in the case of the inondative biological fight . It is then necessary to control the techniques of multiplication of entomophagous (in insectarium) or the pathogenic germ (out of fermenters for the Bacteria, on the alive one for the Viruses), of conditioning of storage and spreading, while maintaining constant the quality of the product. Such auxiliaries, known as biopesticides, intended for applications repeated in a current husbandry are checked multiple to make sure of their harmlessness for the nontarget living beings. Their range of hosts (very limited in theory) is examined very as much as their possible toxic properties or allergens. By selection and operations of genetic engineering, one seeks to improve these auxiliaries, in their conferring for example properties of resistance to the extreme climates, insecticides or fungicides.

- At the borders of the biological fight : the fight autocide (still called fight by sterile males). It has as a principle the introduction in great number into a natural population modified male individuals (made sterile by the application of ionizing rays) but to the intact sexual behavior. These handled males, will once be released, in competition with the wild males. If they are (for example) 9 times more than their congeneric “natural”, and if the females accept only one coupling, 9 females out of 10 will not have a descent. At the end of few generations, the continuing contribution of sterile males, the target population is destroyed. The fight autocide rests on a very astute principle but its employment seems restricted with some very rare well adapted cases.

- Beyond the biological fight… One currently works to develop the use of toxins of Mushrooms and the Bacteria entomopathogenes, either as a phytopharmacological active matter to arrange beside traditional insecticides, or as substances which one makes manufacture by the genetically modified plant (a corn transgenic resisting the European corn borer is in theory available).

reasoned protection of the cultures

It is a question of using respectful methods of the environment, such as the introduction of auxiliaries, the use of microbiology, or the mechanical or thermal methods. We will deal here with the two last quoted methods. The means known as mechanical or thermal can be employed in the crop protection against bad grasses, or certain living organisms in the ground.

the hoeing consists in loosening the ground around crop plant by the action of a manual tool (the hoe) or mechanics (the mechanical hoeing-machine). It makes it possible, amongst other things, to uproot bad grasses.
the thermal weeding consists in burning bad grasses thanks to a machine designed for this purpose.
solarization is a technique of weeding of the grounds by means of the heat of the sun.
the disinfection of the grounds to the vapor , used in culture under greenhouses, makes it possible to destroy the pathogenic germs present in the ground.

protection of spaces sensitive to fire

Forest fires present a growing risk, not only in the Mediterranean region, but also on most of the national territory. That is:

with the agricultural and forest déprise which involves a reduction in the populations whose activities ensured the regular maintenance of the natural zones;
with the mitage which establishes in these sectors of new inhabitants being unaware of the habits installation safety. This inexperience leads to imprudences, often source of starting point of fire;
with a tourist development significant which induces considerable financial stakes explaining the voluntary firings;
at repeated years of dryness who support the increase in the deadwood in less and less exploited sectors.

Vis-a-vis this situation, the regulation, average collectives of prevention and defense, and the information of the public are essential. But it is especially by considered installations and a rigorous management that these spaces will be preserved.

The inflammability of the plant species evolves/moves with the water content of fabrics, the importance of the surfaces exposed to drying and the developmental stage of the plants (age and species). Its knowledge makes it possible to attract the vigilance of the manager at certain periods of the year, or can direct the choice of the gasolines during an installation.

A table which counts all the species of the stages herbaceous, shrubby and raised, makes it possible to take note of the degree of inflammability of each species, month by month. The degree is noted from 0 to 5, reciprocally of “not very flammable” with “extremely flammable”. These data were established starting from tests carried out on samples to the same developmental stage and criteria of frequency, of time of ignition and duration of combustion.

There exist several methods of protection:

undergrowth clearance : that consists in destroying the herbaceous layer and bets it low shrubby in order to reduce the risks of starting point of fire.

manual : ensure a work of quality, allows the selectivity of the species, expensive for poor yield, to envisage the evacuation of waste;
mechanical : the slope limits the interventions, the investment is heavy but the outputs are important, crushed waste remain on the spot;
chemical : application of products to absorption racinaire or foliar, the water provision is sometimes difficult, the conditions phenologic and climatic reduce the period, the plants are desiccated and remain on the spot.

burning directed : that consists in burning the herbaceous and shrubby layer on a date making it possible to limit the damage on the raised layer, in order to create a zone concealing less fuel, slowing down the progression of fire and supporting the means of fire control. The intervention is fast and the weak cost price, but it must be carried out by specialists.
pasture controlled : that consists in making feed a herd of sheep or the caprine ones in order to limit phytomasse it in the zones to be protected (sylvo-pastoralism). It makes it possible to fight to a certain extent against the turning into a desert, but causes damage with the plants sometimes to be preserved. That requires the installation of fences and the presence of specialized shepherds.

Management differentiated by type of space

maintenance of spaces of accompaniment

management of the shrubby zones

Protection against the animals : in the particularly exposed sectors, the game can cause irreversible damage, in particular on the level of the barks, on the young plantations. In this case, it is essential to place nets of protection around the shrubs, with a light ridging to avoid the passages below. Three tutors in bamboos are inserted of 30cm in the ground and maintain a sleeve of net polyethylene (60cm top).
Watering : in the parts deprived of system of irrigation, it will be necessary to envisage a watering of the young shrubs to the assistance, for example, of a cistern.
Size of the shrubs with flowers : consist in removing the branches having flowered to obtain new quite floriferous branches. (Periods of intervention: immediately after flowering for the shrubs with spring flowering, during all the rest of the vegetation for the shrubs with estival flowering).
Size of the hedges : consist in preserving the shapes and volumes of the regular hedges. The period best adapted is function of the growth and the frost resistance of the starts-up.

management of the edges of road

The very vast highway network changed considerably during these last decades. With the increase in the traffic, the road influence widened. The roadside was mown manually by the roadmenders formerly but today that requires a powerful material. Vis-a-vis increasingly heavy tasks of maintenance, the persons in charge of the road field turn to a more ecological management. It consists in reconstituting the vegetable structures supporting a biological balance. These last create a natural space and of easier maintenance.

landscape Integration : generally, work of infrastructure modifies the ground deeply. It is thus important to facilitate management of it:

to support the integration of the work by the choice of local gasolines heterogeneous,
to use species of easier installation adapted on the ground and the climate,
to reconstitute the natural structures, meadows, lined or quickset hedges characteristic of the medium.

extensive Management of the green dependences : the practiced interventions concerning ecological genius rise from the observation of the ecosystems. It is a question of setting up a strategy supporting the relations between the natural actors of a site by observing certain rules:

to ensure the balance and the stability of the biotopes,
to maintain the recycling of the basic elements by the respect of minimal surfaces essential to the autonomy of the biological system,
to control the natural evolution,
to choose the material less traumatisant for the vegetation and the fauna which there refuge.

management of the meadow zones

There exist two great types of meadow zones: wet meadows and dry meadows.

the wet meadows are natural and quasi-natural ecosystems whose vegetation is characterized and dominated by the graminaceous ones, laîches, reeds, snap rings and low perennial grasses. They shelter a fauna and a flora savages as well as a biological diversity specific, including/understanding species and communities of plants and animals rare and threatened, including important populations of birds to the international level, a diversity of mammals, invertebrates, reptiles and Amphibians. They are periodically flooded or saturated with water and maintained by the cut, burning, the pasture (natural or induced by the Man), or by a set of these factors.
the dry meadows offer habitats to multiple animal species and vegetable, but tend to rarefy, as one can see it with the example of Switzerland. This is why the Federal Office of the Environment, the Forests and the Landscape (OFEFP) of this state currently draws up the inventory of the meadows and dry pastures of national importance. At the end of the year 2000, the collaborators of private offices of ecology completed this assessment in half of the cantons. In order to determine which are the zones to protect in priority, a method of appreciation and classification was installation. Each meadow is evaluated according to its quality; this value rests on six criteria: important vegetation, surface, structural elements for the animals, possible presence of rare plant species, diversity of the vegetation, and ecological networks including/understanding of the corridors located outside the meadow.

The flora which recovers the enherbées zones composes of annual, long-lived and sometimes semi-woody plants. The graminaceous ones are most numerous in the lawns and the meadows; for neatest, they constitute even the only vegetation. It is thus very important to know their vegetative cycle in order to determine the periods of human intervention. Knowing this cycle, it is thus understood that the intense period of intervention is between the “rise of ear” and “fructification”, that the voluntarily limited interventions will begin with the “rise from ear”, and that the mowing, reduced to an annual intervention, must naturally take place with the “rise of ear”.

Mowing, method of largely dominant cut in differentiated management, consists in cutting grass a certain height; waste either is left on the spot, or raked up and charged. It is generally annual but can be renewed several times for safety reasons (visibility at the edge of the roads) or of esthetics. Three types of material are used:

the bar of cut on tractor
the bar of cut on cultivator (for more reduced surfaces with few obstacles and possibly inclined, but a cut of quality)
rotofaucheuse the (for large surfaces and a cut without completion).

In order to reduce the interventions on these zones, it is also important to choose gasolines adapted to natural qualities of the site and ground, in order to limit the watering (which will have to be calculated according to natural precipitations and of the evapotranspiration of the ground), the plant health fertilization and treatments. As for the weeding, it could be considerably reduced by the choice of species to strong combativeness, which will not leave a great place to the adventitious ones.

management of the access and water levels their

A water level is an element living just like the vegetalized parts, and for this reason it must receive a regular monitoring and a maintenance. In the watery ecosystem, each element of the trophic chain must keep its place and develop normally, under penalty of seeing this unit changing quickly and dying.

There exist six different controls making it possible to ensure the safeguarding of these mediums:

controls upstream make it possible to protect the floodplains (what contributes to water quality), to check the waste water rejections (cleansings, industries…) and to have an action on the farming methods (not of nitrate excess)
control of the luminosity aims at limiting the development of the vegetable vault to support the action of the light on the immersed vegetation (photosynthesis = oxygenation of water), and to limit the plants and suspended matter (the nitrate excess supporting the floating plants)
the limitation of the watery vegetation is done by clearing of weeds, so as not to too much cut at the same time (to avoid the stop of the reproduction of fish)
the control of the muddy deposits , which are signs of asphyxiation and bad water quality; this disadvantage can be limited by a Champagne chalk contribution
the control of the piscicultural population makes it possible to preserve a good proportion between the quantity of fish and the reserves in food and oxygen of the water level
the control of the chemical balance of water makes it possible to detect accidental pollution quickly and to cure it.

The good knowledge of the ecosystems related to the wetlands will lead to a reflection supporting of the more respectful interventions of the biological balance of the flora and fauna: the irregularity and the vegetalisation of contours multiply the ecological niches, and a constant water level as well as an installation of soft inclined banks support an important fauna and a flora along the banks.

a example: the maintenance of the Swallow (river located in Oise, on the commune of Coudun): Mr L. belonged to the AAPPMA (Association Approved of Fishing and Protection of the Aquatic environment of Coudun, affiliated at the French federation of Fishing), which maintenance the Swallow and its banks. We asked him some questions to include/understand the types of interventions which association carries out.

Comment do you maintain the banks, and with which material?

“the maintenance of the banks mainly consists to clear of undergrowth, mow and withdraw the trees fallen into the river using slicers, saws, car-extremely and sometimes with a tractor. ”

do you Intervene on water quality?

“We épandons sometimes of lime to crystallize the mud, which is subsidized by the District council. On the level of the physical aspect of the river, we pose deflectors (two posts on which a pallet is fixed) on the level them elbows, to amplify the current and thus désenvaser water. We also place tree trunks or telephone posts out of wooden at water flower in order to dig the bed of the river at the places where it generally overflows; this system makes it possible to gain 50 to 75 cm per annum out of approximately two meters of distance. Moreover, this increase in the water level clears up the bottom and creates zones of spawning grounds. ”

Which do you make to control the piscicultural population?

“It there forever of overpopulation since the Swallow is a fishing zone. On the other hand, rempoissonner is needed every year with alevins of 5-6 cm, to make up the deficit, and it fishing is controlled so that the youngest subjects are slackened, which ensures the renewal of fish. ”

Business application differentiated to certain parks and by certain local government agencies

The wood of Pleasure (Oise)

The Community of Communes of the Area of Compiegne (CCRC) plans to create a zone of economic activity on the site of the Wood of Pleasure, localized on the commune of Venette. The project was conceived with a strong will of taking into account of the environment. Entering a more detailed phase of design, the CCRC, in charge of the control of work, wishes to reinforce the environmental quality of the project, as well in the phase of design as in a long-term approach. Within this framework it launches a consultation in order to associate at its engineering services a team of qualified engineering in the field of the environment, installation and sustainable development. The services concerned with this mission break up into three phases: deepening of the environmental objectives of the project; accompaniment of the originators in charge of the control of work; reflection on the devices and management tools durable of the environment of the site.

In order to preserve the site, through its installation, of external pollution, various solutions were proposed:

the partners of the grouping will examine materials and materials planned in order to make the analysis of it criticizes taking into consideration sustainable development, and in particular their capacity of longevity, to be not pollutants in the long term and which can be recycled
the ground having capacities for absorption, the infiltration of clean water and/or treated will be developed upstream in order to minimize the networks and the works downstream on the one hand, and the streaming on the other hand
the members of the grouping will go available in order to take part in the meetings of building site, in order to deliver an opinion on the environmental, landscape and qualitative aspects of the building site (will be checked the protection of surface or underground waters, the recovery of the polluting products such as hydrocarbons and toxic products, formation of dust, the circulation generated by construction, noise pollutions…).

Thereafter, in order to perennialize the qualitative aspect of the park of activities, it is envisaged to develop an Environmental Charter.

See Appendix.

The park of the way of the island (Hauts de Seine)

The park of the Way of the island is a new space of relaxation and leisures which replaces an industrial waste land. The setting in scene of the place at the same time mixes all, open big spaces, adventure playgrounds, places of walk. This park will be opened with the public since 2006.

To reconcile city and natural : the installation of this place, stretched between disparate fringes, violently marked by the presence of roads and viaducts, pylons, blowers which disperse foul air, cannot be summarized with a simple make-up. For the workshop Acanthus, the future park of the edges of the Seine must be a place of life, the heart of an alliance between the city and nature. A true biological system and not an entertaining greenery. By taking nature for allied, the workshop seizes its elements: water, air, ground… The park opens on the river and creates a space of breathing by the presence of a vast plain.
a park integrated in a step of sustainable development : the project aims moreover at developing an ordinary but varied nature. Thus, at the sides of the horticultural or turfed zones, the park opens on flowered meadows, ponds, isolated trees, hedges, glazing bar with the different ecological roles. The dimension of sustainable development is really integral part of the project: taking into account of the biodiversity, treatment of the air, solar energy utilization, treatment and rational management of water, management of the biomass thanks to its treatment on the spot in closed cycle, reduction of noise pollutions. Even orientation for the banks. Their ecological value will be increased by various installations: gravels for the laying of fish, the mudholes for the insects and the batrachians. The device of this sector includes/understands an immersed gabion, the creation of a not very major zone of littoral planted watery vegetations and substrates varied. This future park of 14,5 hectares is arranged in edge of the Seine on an old industrial waste land. The building site is led according to the criteria of requirement of HQE: environmental high-quality.
ecological exemplarity with the building authority : on the building site, the recycling of materials is systematically privileged in order to limit the production of waste as well as the transport and the circulation of the machines of building site. The materials used were selected for their neutrality on the medium. The proofing of the basins and side ditches is ensured 80% by the use of clay layers present on the ground. The materials of demolition of the buildings are crushed on the spot and re-used for the foundations of the alleys. As for the removed trees and other plants, they are crushed and transformed into mulch which will be used as natural manure at the time of the plantations. The establishment of filter gardens will make it possible to manage water in a rational way. These gardens naturally purify the water pumped in the Seine, which is used then for watering of the park and the family gardens, or turns over purified in the river, thus supporting the constitution of spawning grounds (place where the fish clear).
Four buildings will be born : the house of the banks (restoration), the house of the equestrian guard (stables), the house of park (exposures/information/orientation of the public) and of the administrative buildings. Their construction achieves 6 goals of the HQE: it is characterized particularly by materials employed (wood, metal and cover out of zinc) and by their modularity.
the blooming of a biodiversity : based on the durable safeguarding of the resources and the environment, this park restores a true ecosystem in which fauna and flora grow rich mutually. Located opposite the future park, the Flowered island, a protected site, a refuge for the avifauna and of many animals constitutes. This natural basin supported the maintenance of a biodiversity on banks of Nanterre, where still remain of the not very current species of plants and insects. This capital will be preserved and developed by installations of the type “ecological genius” which restore “mini-ecosystems”: installation of spawning grounds and gravel grounds for the laying of fish, creation of mudholes for various insects and batrachians, side ditch in natural pond to allow the installation of a watery vegetation, etc

Word of landscape designer : Member of the team of Guillaume Geoffroy-Plows the stubble with the workshop of landscape designers Acanthe, Ronan Gallais is responsible for the control of work of the park of the Way of the Island.

was Which the principal constraints of this project? “They were due essentially to the industrial past of this site: careers of exploitation at the beginning of the century, metallurgy company, and more recently the layouts of the highways A 14 and has 86 and that of the RER has followed one another there. The park was to federate all these elements. For that, it was necessary to add the Seine, the historical axis of Defense and the presence of the city, Nanterre. ”

With the opening on the Seine and the presence of watery gardens, water seems to have been one of the elements founders of the future park…

“the specific element first is indeed water. Drawn from the river, it is conveyed along a channel covered with a grating: the walkers will be able to see it and hear it run out under their steps. As for the watery gardens, they illustrate the various natural stages of its filtration and its depollution by the plants. ”

This park falls under a logic of sustainable development. What does that mean concretely for the future walkers?

“the visitor is actor. He to him is given the opportunity to take again possession of his medium, and in particular of his river. This park is designed in good intelligence with its environment, a contrario of the anonymous urban environments, made up in total ignorance of spaces, the reliefs, the flora or fauna local. Sustainable development is equivalent to the introduction of a viable space in the long run. In this logic, renewable energies will have all their place: solar energy will feed the house of the park and the guinguette, the water of watering will be pumped thanks to wind energy, and finally, all waste of the park will be treated in our technical zone and the vegetable composts will be re-used to enrich the grounds. ”

The park of the island German St (Hauts de Seine)

For more than twenty years, the departmental park of the Saint-Germain island has sheltered varied and unexpected gardens where vegetable poetry, inheritances naturalness and history intermingle harmoniously. More still today, it offers the vision of a nature to the reconquest of its territory where very led to the blooming of a free flora and a fauna of the urban constraints however so close. At the base old military waste land, this park was refitted in the years 1990, at the time of the awakening of an environment to preserve. This new policy resulted, on the Saint-Germain island, in the installation of new tools. This step also passed by the inventory and the study of the spontaneous trees and plants which however appeared deprived of interest. A worthy vegetation to be taken into account, developed and developed thus could be indexed. The development of this military waste land passed by a project of préverdissement. The landscape project suggested in 1995 per Yves Deshayes fits then in the new environmental orientations of the General advice which preaches the creation of new parks developing the spontaneous flora and fauna. The landscape designer, benefitting from the values of the vegetable inheritance present on the island, then invents the concept of the “unforeseen gardens” whose principles are to preserve the spontaneous flora in place and to support his blooming by the application of a more respectful management of the environment according to the practices of differentiated management. In the Saint-Germain island, the installations, created around closed or opened spaces, are based on the development of the existing vegetation, develop the appearance of spontaneous plant species and encourage the colonization of a fauna very diversified on the banks and in isolated spaces. This return to nature, passing by the valorization of the waste land, is not without pointing out the concept of the “garden moving” of the contemporary landscape designer Gilles Clément, practical where the gardener does not oppose any more the natural movement of the wandering plants, but on the contrary the wife. More still, the gardeners of the Saint-Germain island push the limits of these experiments and make “unforeseen gardens” a singular project where, beyond the mobility of differentiated management, the garden is with more close to nature, evolutionary and durable. Because if the esthetic value of the garden, of its composition, its internal structure has an undeniable importance, the work of creation is initially considered in a stubborn respect of the ecosystems where the gardener is brought to intervene with parsimony. This last must give up the use of manures, the application of various chemicals and the traditional techniques of watering. This orientation should be reinforced in the future by the creation of a “departmental Natural reserve” being the subject of a rigorous scientific follow-up. Already, some actions generated an evolution in this direction: the realization of a pond involving the development of a biotope of moist environments, and the culture of the messicoles plants (plants of the “harvests”) ressuscitant with happiness the cornflowers and poppies disappeared from our landscapes.

Many other significant examples

In area Nord-Pas-de-Calais

- The town of Large-Synthe (North) - The town of Lille (Northern) - The Town of Roubaix (Northern) - The commune of Sailly-on-the-Lily (Pas-de-Calais) - The commune of Wormhout (Northern) - The Landscape Park of Activities of Landacres to Boulogne-sur-mer (Pas-de-Calais) - The Industrial Park Artois-Flandres with Douvrin (Pas-de-Calais)

In big cities of France

- Strasbourg - Rennes - Angers (the Balzac park) - Bourges - Orleans - The Park of Sausset, (Seine-St-Denis) - Lyon (the Park of the Gold Head) - Grenoble - Annecy

In Germany

- Friebourg on the Rhine - Hamburg

In Belgium

- Brussels (inter alia the park of Woluwe, the park King Baudouin, Scheutbos) - Mouscron - Seneffe

Conclusion

This method of management, which applies to large scales, as much in surface that in time, seems to us being healthy for the future generations. There remains however progress to be made, but it should be hoped that this concept develops a maximum. It indeed contributes to give again with nature all its scale and thus to support a collective awakening on the fundamental character of the respect of the environment.

See too

Ecology
Ecology of the ecological landscape
Integrity
biological Corridor
ecological Impact strength
Environment
Sustainable development
Agronomy
Agrosylviculture
flowered Meadow

External bonds

http://environnement-transports.hauts-de-seine.net
http://www.inra.fr
http://www.gestiondifferenciee.org
management differentiated on the site from Chico Mendès
management differentiated in Bourges

Bibliographical elements

Of the good ideas to the good practices - days technical on differentiated Management, Horticultural extract PHM- re-examined, August 03 July, 3 pages
Of the Practical Cards for differentiated management… - New the Council 2003
Guide Differentiated Management - For one fleurissement reasoned of the cities

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