Museum Nights at the Botanical Garden of St Gallen

First, we took part on the Museum Nights of St Gallen on the 13th of September, under the kind invitation of the Botanical Garden. For several hours, we had visitors learning about our work and taking part in our long-running “✏️ Draw a tree, we plant it 🌳” action. 

As the activity unfolds, we usually create a temporary exhibition with the drawings, as they are made. The styles and creativity of the participants – children and adults – leaves everyone with a big smile on their faces and motivates more people to join. A nice effect! Check the gallery for a few impressions.

At the end of the evening, we had collected 101 drawings, which we will turn into real trees with our international partners.

All in all, a good result and we are already planning to be back next year!

3. Biodiversity Market of Grub

One week later, on the 20th of September, we were present at the 3. Biodiversity Market of Grub. This is a small, nice village in Appenzell Ausserrhoden. The Market was a lively meeting point for several organisations, people and small companies, all actively engaged in activities linked to biodiversity – from wildlife protection, natural heritage to sustainable food and farming. Quite a few families and participants, creating a very relaxed atmosphere.

We repeated our “✏️ Draw a tree, we plant it 🌳” activity and collected an additional 48 drawings, bringing our total for the two events to 149!

In addition, we took the opportunity to test a new prototype activity with a few young participants: a storyboard for how to create a nature-friendly garden in urban areas. We start with a large empty lawn garden and participants can then add different elements, from furniture to natural structures and wildlife, to create their version of a garden. At the end, we talk about what they see and wish to create, and how to ensure that things can work best together. We took the useful feedback into preparing a next version, for 2026.