Over the last few years there have been almost half a million plants planted along the city’s streets.

Roadside greenery is Poznan’s pride. There is no other city in Poland which has such well-kept squares and green belts along its city streets, or even between its tram tracks. The Municipal Road Board (ZDM) has even created a special office which maintains the roadside greenery.

“These are the precursory actions. We first test the plants and technical solutions” says Agnieszka Szulc, head of the greenery department at the ZDM.

It all started in 2003 when the City Board decided that Poznan’s streets needed a facelift. This aim was financed with quite large sums of money, countable in millions of PLN. The first place to be taken care of was Obornickie roundabout, with the then-rebuilt Szelągowska, Pułaskiego and Przepadek streets. Irrigated lawns, precisely cut hedges and colourful flowerbeds appeared in those places, and in order to separate the greenery from the road, a stone belt was put alongside the streets. These protect the plants from slush mixed with salt, which is the biggest threat to roadside greenery.
The time when the most of plants were seeded was last year, when Poznań was the host of the UN Climate Change Conference in December. At that time, trees and bushes appeared alongside the streets surrounding the Poznan International Fair area.

“It is a very urbanised area. We had very little space, so the plants had to be carefully selected to fit in” explains Agnieszka Szulc.

The ZDM’s priority is the greenery in the city centre, including the Kaponiera roundabout, Roosevelta street, Małe Garbary and the Garbary crossroads ,and in front of the public utility buildings, such as the main stations, offices and universities. The plants were also carefully selected  on outgoing roads from Poznan, such as the Środka roundabout, Starołęka roundabout or Głogowska street. This does not mean however, that these are the only places where roadside green belts will be full of trees and bushes, as they will be planted also in more peripheral streets, such as Murawa or Mieszka I.
“Each scrap of land has very well planned greenery. For example, on the Małe Garbary and Garbary crossroads there are always traffic jams. So, to divert drivers’ attention and in order to make their time pleasant while waiting for the green light, we made the flowerbeds very colourful and diverse” explains Agnieszka Szulc.

In the last 6 years, 6,000 trees, 200,000 bushes and more than 200,000 flowers have been planted along Poznan’s streets.
But such well-kept greenery requires a lot of financing. Last year, the City paid around 10 million PLN for this, and year on year, the greenery maintenance costs grow higher. This year, for the new plants and for the maintenance of existing ones, the City budget has reserved
8.5 mln PLN.