Guided Professional Tour of Maribor’s Urban plantings report

On Thursday, 29 September 2022, we met in Maribor for our first professional guided tour of urban plantings. The visit was expertly led by Karin Bejo, BSc in Agricultural Engineering, Horticulture Officer at the public utility company Snaga d.o.o., and Tanja Grmovšek, BSc in Forestry, founder of the company Arborist.

We started the tour at General Maister Square and continued along General Tomšič Street into the City Park, which we left at its eastern end. At the entrance to the park, we observed a long flower bed planted with a variety of perennials. In Maribor, perennials are increasingly replacing seasonal bedding plants; among the latter, the best results have been achieved with small-flowered pansies.

In the past, Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris) and Himalayan pine (Pinus wallichiana) predominated among the tree species in the City Park, but due to pine rust (Cronartium ribicola) they have virtually disappeared. Currently, maples are being planted more extensively in this area – sycamore maple (Acer pseudoplatanus) proving more successful than Norway maple (Acer platanoides). Additionally, they have good results with European hop-hornbeam (Ostrya carpinifolia), which shows a better tolerance of high summer temperatures compared to common hornbeam (Carpinus betulus). Turkish hazel (Corylus colurna) has performed poorly in Maribor and is no longer included in new plantings.

In the City Park, we also observed significant problems affecting the groundcover rose ‘Red Fairy’ caused by the use of a woven landscape fabric mulch.

We then continued towards Leon Štukelj Square, where a newly established planting features a wide variety of tree species. From there, we walked to the Main Square to view a young planting of ginkgo (Ginkgo biloba) trees. The tour concluded at Slomšek Square, where we admired the oldest ginkgo tree in the area.

Despite the rainy weather, the visit was exceptionally interesting and informative.

Text by prof. dr. Gregor Oster