Category: General

Enric Omella, master gardener, tells us about his experience during his stay at the Marimurtra Botanical Garden in 1975.

He started in the world of gardening from a biology and geology teacher he had in high school at that time. The way the classes were taught made him motivated to study. To such an extent, at the age of sixteen, that he went to the library of the University of Barcelona to continue researching and learning about botany.

In this conversation with Jordi Fàbregas, head of the Marimurtra garden, he comments on the differences and tasks that are still valid today for the organization of the garden. The way of sorting and delimiting the plants by zones that can be found there, based on tiles, stands out. They are ordered alphabetically or by common characteristics.

He also explains his experience or collaboration between gardens where he was able to be a gardener, such as: Miramar, Cap Roig or Pinya de Rosa.

Healing Gardens is a documentary series from Vision TV, (Zoomer Television) a Canadian network, which explores the transformative capabilities of gardens. The fifth episode of this season was recorded during the spring of this year at the Marimurtra Botanical Garden.

In the episode, Charlie Dobbin, the host of the show, interviews different people who interact with Marimurtra to learn about their relationship with the Garden and how they fall in love with it.

First of all, he talks to expert ornithologist and environmental consultant Pere Alzina, who explains his task of inventorying and studying the birds that fly over Marimurtra.

The director general of the Carl Faust Private Foundation, Josep Borrell, is also interviewed. The founder of the Garden, Carl Faust, created the Foundation to ensure the continuity of his work and, in the documentary, Borrell explains how the botanical management is in this privileged place and some of the main projects of the Garden, projects that promote the dissemination, conservation and research of botany.

Anna Sans, head of the Dissemination Department of the Carl Faust Foundation, explains how the Garden is conceived as an ecosystem in which not only plant species interact, but there is a large network of relationships between insects, birds, mammals, plants , etc.; and how important it is to take care of all these relationships.

The botanist’s master gardener, Jordi Fàbregas, talks about the distribution of the Garden and how they conceive their maintenance task for the more than 4,000 species from all over the world that live together in Marimurtra.

Finally, you can enjoy some short clips with extra content on the website of the documentary, among which there is an interview with Christopher Witty, one of the members of the board of trustees of the Carl Faust Foundation, who has a great passion for nature and, he affirms, that “he often understands plants better than humans”.

The documentary can be viewed here: https://healinggardens.tv/season2

The Carl Faust Private Foundation was created in 1951 by Carl Faust. Among its founding objectives are “…the protection and promotion of studies in Mediterranean biology, especially in botany, […] seeking cooperation and international relations for the benefit, all in all, of scientific research and dissemination…” .

The Marimurtra Botanical Garden is classified as a Cultural Asset of National Interest and in 2009 the Carl Faust Private Carl Foundation was awarded the Sant Jordi Cross from the Generalitat de Catalunya.

On October 1st, 2023, Mia and Louisa arrived in Blanes to join the Marimurtra team. They are the two German volunteers who are part of the “Volunteers for a Green Future” project, coordinated together with the German organization Naturkultur, e.V. and framed in the European program “European Solidarity Corps”.

The Carl Faust Private Foundation, host organization for this project, owner and manager of the Marimurtra Botanical Garden, welcomes two volunteers from the European Solidarity Corps from October until June. This European program aims to offer young people the opportunity to participate in volunteering projects that benefit the community that hosts them, as well as providing them with high-level non-formal learning. Specifically, this project lasts nine months and receives more than 90 requests each year.

During their stay, the volunteers participate in activities at the Botanical Garden related to sustainable conservation, education and scientific dissemination and the applied research that is carried out in Marimurtra. In addition, thanks to the collaboration with the Linguistic Standardization Consortium (CNL), the volunteers will participate in a basic level Catalan course to facilitate their integration in our home.

This is the fifth time that Marimurtra has participated in the ESC program by hosting volunteers, since it received the European quality seal in 2019, thus continuing the presence of international volunteers in its facilities in a program linked to the European Union which we can already consider consolidated.

Every year the Carl Faust Foundation welcomes different internship students to the Marimurtra Botanical Garden who carry out the practical learning part of their studies.

In this case, Amira Benali, student of the Degree in Biotechnology at the University of Girona, explains to us what her internship at the Garden has consisted of.

Basically, he has been working with plant extracts. In the Marimurtra Botanical Garden, no chemical products have been used to carry out treatments for 6 years. Instead, plant extracts are used. As Amira says ‘…healing plants from plants‘.

During her stay, Amira has been able to observe in the short term the effects and changes in the horticultural species on which the treatments have been applied, in order to see in which cases their application benefited the plant. In addition, the species with which the Marimurtra Botanical Garden makes the extracts, nettle, horsetail, bora and solan, are grown in the same garden.

In the Marimurtra Botanic Garden shop you will find a wide variety of products, from the part of the charity shop with products from Intermon Oxfam, to the sale of plants from Marimurtra’s own collection which are a magnificent detail like as a souvenir of the visit to the Garden, and zero kilometer products.

One of our star products is the flower honey from the apiary of the Marimurtra Botanical Garden, made by the thousands of bees that live in the Garden. These live in Marimurtra hives and fly over the whole Garden collecting pollen from different species from all over the world. That is why this honey is enigmatic and unique since it is impossible to find out exactly which flowers its honey is from.

The store also supports local artisans, as is the case with Laviret, a Blanes company that produces different types of drinks. Among its range of products, Can Ballena ratafia stands out, made with natural products from the area, such as green walnuts and fresh aromatic plants collected in Blanes; and the myrtle liqueur made with murtrons harvested in the Garden from the same plant that gives its botanical name, the myrtle (Myrthus communis).

This is also the case with Ses Vernes, specialists in artisan cavas made with Blanes grapes. In the shop you can buy two of their varieties of cava.

The purchase of local products favors the reduction of the footprint, since the costs and negative effects of transport and distribution are minimal. In addition, it is a circular economy clearing which, in other words, means that it helps to promote the local economy and to support the producers of the area.

Visit Marimurtra and take a piece of our land with you!

Recently, members of the research group of the Plant Physiology Unit of the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, ​​currently coordinated by Roser Tolrà, and until recently coordinated by Charlotte Poschenrieder, member of the Carl Faust Foundation’s board of trustees, visited the Marimurtra Botanical Garden. This group has specialized in the study of plant growth and development under abiotic stress (salinity, drought, deficit and excess of trace elements) and its interaction with biotic stress (fungal infections, herbivory). His research projects are generally focused on research projects focused on the adaptation mechanisms of plants to adverse factors of both carbonate soils and tropical acid soils and the rhizospheric processes involved.

The group, which visited the Marimurtra accompanied by a guide, showed a lot of interest in the new dune area, a small representation of a dune system where we find a population of Achillea maritima, a species considered endangered by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN). Marimurtra is carrying out a project to recover and replant this taxon from 2021. So, once the plants are vigorous, they are planted at points on the Catalan coast in order to increase and consolidate the natural populations of this species.

Likewise, they were also very interested in the range of adaptations that plants show depending on the climate of their area of ​​origin. This is a phenomenon called evolutionary or genetic convergence and it can be seen very clearly in the pergola and the cacti viewpoint, where we find plants typical of the humid subtropical zone and the arid subtropical zone.

Charlotte Poschenrieder is currently a member of the Carl Faust Foundation’s board of trustees and an active member of the Scientific Research and Dissemination Commission. She was coordinator of the Plant Physiology group until Roser Tolrà took over. It is always a pleasure to welcome you to Marimurtra, and in this case, also to your colleagues in the department.

The University of Barcelona publishes the botanical guide to the Ferran Soldevila garden of the UB

This 2023, Edicions de la Universitat de Barcelona has published the long-awaited botanical guide on what is one of the most unknown jewels of the city of Barcelona, the Ferran Soldevila garden.

Integrated into the historic building of the University, the garden has almost 250 species that present a synthesis of the rich variety of ornamental and street plants, in which allochthonous or exotic flora is combined with that which grows spontaneously everywhere of the country.

This guide catalogs the garden plants in sheets that include the scientific name of each, a brief morphological description accompanied by photographs, the geographical distribution and ecology, an indication of the period of flowering and fruiting, and even data on the its uses and some historical note. The book also contains indexes of scientific names and names in Catalan, a glossary and, inside the flap, a detailed map which, in addition to allowing you to locate and identify the plants while walking around the garden, offers information about the flora and the visits guided tours in the Historic Building.

From the Jardí Botànic Marimurtra we encourage you to visit the historic and unique garden of the University of Barcelona accompanied by this friendly guide who will enlighten you about the species that live there and will certainly enrich your visit to this wonderful corner of Barcelona.

About the authors:

Cèsar Blanché i Vergés (Barcelona, 1958) is professor of Botany at the Faculty of Pharmacy and Food Sciences of the University of Barcelona and full academician of the Royal Academy of Pharmacy of Catalonia. Researcher in the field of conservation biology of threatened plants and member of the Plant Biosystems Research Group and the Teaching Innovation Group in Botany Applied to Pharmacy, he has also been patron of the Carl Faust Foundation of the Marimurtra Botanical Garden Blanes He is co-author of several projects using university gardens as a teaching resource.

Ramon Maria Masalles i Saumell (Blancafort, Conca de Barberà, 1948) is a retired professor of Botany at the Faculty of Biology of the University of Barcelona and a member of the Royal Academy of Sciences and Arts of Barcelona. Co-author of the Flora manual dels Països Catalans, his research has focused on geobotany, and particularly on the study of non-native flora and the herbaceous communities of Catalonia. He has taught the master’s degree in Landscape Architecture at the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya and is currently patron of the Carl Faust Foundation of the Marimurtra Botanic Garden in Blanes.