The Kloosterbos
On the Eikenburg estate, you will find Leo Bakx's beautiful Kloosterbos (dutch for monastery forest). The Kloosterbos is a combination of a food forest and a community vegetable garden.
With the large number of fruit and nut trees, bushes and plants, the forest can provide quite a bit of food. Yet food is not the goal of this forest garden. The goal is diversity and climate adaptation. The variety of trees and plants provides the perfect environment for many insects and bees while also keeping the soil and air healthy.
In addition, The Monastery Forest's mission is to offer hospitality. It is a place where hospitality goes hand in hand with healing and growth for nature and society. A place to develop a different or better relationship with nature.
Residents of the estate intend to contribute to its development. In 2018, Leo came up with the initiative to build the Monastery Forest. As an experienced food forest builder, Leo thought the vacant plot of about 3,000 square metres would be nice for a food forest. With the help of volunteers, neighbours and Design Academy students, the plan grew into a beautiful diverse forest garden. It has become a place to quietly dream away and enjoy what nature has to offer. Besides being able to wander around the forest garden yourself, activities and workshops are also organised regularly.
The forest was created without a budget in a very organic way. During a storm in 2019, hefty trees were blown down. These were then shredded and now serve as paths in the forest garden. Most of the trees and plants have been adopted from other places.
The plan is to expand the greenery this year and next year and then leave further development to nature. The forest Garden can then last another 40 years or so.
Click here for the Kloosterbos website.