ZIELEŃ TO ŻYCIE - Garden Treasures

Warsaw, August 2012. This year’s 20th edition of GREEN IS LIFE Exhibition took place between 24th and 26th August. It gathered representatives of horticultural business from 12 countries who, according to tradition, presented their produce in the EXPO XXI fair hall. The jubilee edition was honoured by business conferences, project workshops, demonstrations and lectures for visitors.

Award Special Laurel.

This year we were awarded Special Laurel. The award was granted for the first time and it came to Sz. Marczyński, W. Piotrowski Clematis Container Nursery for the most attractive stand from the marketing point of view. The award was devised with relation to the conference organized for the sixth time for nursery centers. The prizewinner was elected by an independent expert, this year’s conference lecturer Erwin Meier-Honegger, former President of the International Garden Centre Association (IGCA). Mr Erwin Meier-Honegger is the owner of the Swiss Meier Garden Centre, awarded international TASPO prize in the Independent garden centre of 2011 category and Graines d’Or for The most innovative garden centre of 2011.

We were also honoured to receive Silver Laurel in The most attractive plant exhibit contest. This year we did not take part in the Plant Novelty contest.

Sz. Marczyński, W. Piotrowski Clematis Container Nursery stand was divided into different theme parts.

First part was dedicated to designers. We showed the application of climbers in housing compounds design, amongst others planting the vines on underground car parks’ roofs. These appropriately called green roofs are special constructions allowing vegetation but without soil and they require of designers an exceptional care with plant selection. In demanding conditions where space is scarce and the bed depth does not exceed 20-30 cm, groundcovers are a perfect substitute for grass and climbers – the only alternative to trees. They also form a barrier against wind, dust and noise and conceal unsightly spots (e.g. rubbish bins). Climbers have also other virtues – we presented a selection of strongly scented clematis suited for planting over a garden arbour.

On the other side of the stand we exhibited our offer for garden centres including advertising materials. The concern for the quality of our produce was illustrated with a photo of a rootball of clematis on offer as well as with the safe transport packaging of plants. We presented a choice of plants: groundcovers in P9 container, standard item – vines in C2 containers and large specimen in C7,5, C10 and larger containers. Advertising banners were hung on the stand walls and below we displayed the plants shown on the pictures above – immensely popular medical plants and Actinidia family.

33 novelties introduced this year could be seen just by the information desk. As usual, large-flowered Clematis were popular as well as Clematis fusca with intriguing brown flowers. The new ivy species ‘Białystok' also drew much interest.

Leaflet about Ludwik Lawin.

On the first day of the exhibition, on Friday, August 24th at 2 p.m. professor Edward Bartman led the ceremony of naming of Chinese Wisteria raised from the specimen growing in his Ursynów garden which in turn had been selected and presented to him by Ludwik Lawin. This exceptional variety was bred by Szczepan Marczyński and sold in our nursery with a ‘B’ designation. The Warsaw University of Life Sciences, Faculty of Horticulture and Landscape Architecture team took part in the ceremony along with Ludwik Lawin friends and numerous visitors. Journalists and TV reporters were also presents.

In the part of the stand where the ceremony took place we exhibited the newly named Wisteria floribunda 'Ludwik Lawin' as well as nine other varieties of wisteria and Summer wisteria, all on our nursery offer. Next year we are planning to introduce other attractive varieties.

Ludwik Lawin M.Sc. (born 24th January 1908 in Lodz, died 31st December 1984 in Warsaw) – one of the founders of the Polish school of landscape design. He received secondary education in the Nicolaus Copernicus Humanist Grammar School in Lodz in 1930. Between 1934 and 1935 he worked as a tutor in Horticulture High School in Kijany near Kuble. He began studies at the Faculty of Horticulture of the Warsaw University of Life Sciences (SGGW) in 1935 and following breaks caused by financial difficulties graduated on July 6th 1950, receiving a title of master of agrotechnical sciences and gardening engineer at the Landscape Architecture and Parkland Faculty at SGGW.

From 1951 until his retirement in 1973 he worked as a scientist and lecturer at the Faculty of Green Area Planning at the Warsaw University of Life Sciences. He took part in the 12th International Gardening Congress in Berlin and Essen in 1938 working as a member of Green Area Planning Section and from that time he conducted his own projects. From 1940 to 1941 he was an instructor in the Department of Urban Plantations in Warsaw. Later, in 1945-1956, combining studies and university employment he acted as deputy head of the Department of Green Area Planning on the Capital City’s National Council. He also worked in Urban Architecture Studio, in the Central Design Office and the Design Office for Social Housing. Ludwik Lawin was much respected as a connoisseur and enthusiast for ecological issues and of plants’ properties.

His specialty was designing gardens, playgrounds and sports grounds as well as didactic gardens or green areas around health facilities and housing compounds . In numerous published works he presented plant arrangements and selection. He designed and implemented gardens for family houses and achieved a significant skill at green areas photography, paying special attention to plant s’ properties. As a member of design team he worked on designs of:

• the Regional Park of Culture and Recreation in Chorzow,
• the green area around Silesian Stadium in Katowice,
• Natural Landscape Park in Białowieża,
• Kaskada Park in Warsaw,
• Polish Academy of Sciences Botanical Garden in Warsaw.

He was a member of Landscape Architecture Section of The Polish Architects Association and of Dendrology Section of The Polish Botanical Society. As an officer he fought in the September campaign in 1939, during the German occupation of Poland was a prisoner of Pawiak and in 1941-1945 of the concentration camp in Auschwitz. He was awarded Silver Medal of The 10th Jubilee of The People’s Republic of Poland (1954) and Golden Cross of Merit (1973).