Isère department of France, July 2023
The educational project at Grenoble-Saint-Ismier horticultural college has come a long way. The plantation is maintained every year by the students, who take ownership of this rich area growing in diversity year after year.
The trees and shrubs structuring the landscape have high potential for feeding pollinating insects of all kinds. The aim of this project was to ‘produce biodiversity’. This idea has now been put into practice, and the lycée has taken it a step further by having a farmer install beehives in the orchard-garden system. The bees improve pollination of the fruit trees that have been planted and are growing well.
With support from Isère department (southeastern France),the school has gone even further, installing perches and nesting boxes and developing the plots to promote animal biodiversity (snakes, amphibians by digging a pond, etc). Habitats have been created for birds of prey and ermines that will help control the voles that have killed trees by eating their roots. Three families of trees have proved especially popular with voles: apple, peach, and pear.
During maintenance work carried out by this year’s students, a few mistakes were made and some trees accidentally damaged and crushed. They were immediately replaced by others and the wood shavings (produced from the damaged trees) used to mulch the newly planted trees.
To date, more than 1,019 trees are growing at horticultural college. The good news is that the target of 948 trees for the project has been slightly exceeded!
The project continues to inspire and motivate the students. In the future they will grow their own berry seedlings, which will give them greater autonomy when it comes to replacing trees, as well as supporting local supplies of seedlings for other interested farmers or individuals.
Thank you very much for supporting this project!
