Beicology: Rooting Out the Potential of Beijing's Soil
Encroaching
desertification. Acres of concrete and steel. Beijing certainly isn't
known for being a lush locale teeming with plant life. However,
restauranteur Antoine Mansuy thought
he might be able to change that, if only just a little, on a patch of
land near his restaurant in the southern-Beijing suburb of Yizhuang.
Despite being environmentally conscious, Mansuy's aims weren’t entirely altruistic. The owner of The Roots Western
restaurant wanted fresh bay leaves, oregano, rhubarb, and more, without
having to import them (and hike up his prices in the process). He has
also enjoyed gardening since he was a boy growing up in France, and
experimenting with different ingredients in his grandmother’s wood stove
kitchen. So when local authorities granted him the chance to mess
around with the patch of dirt next to the mall that houses The Roots
last year, Mansuy saw no downside, even if the poor soil seemed lacking
in potential. “Plus, it gave us a chance to reduce our landfill waste by
a solid 30 percent, using all our organic scraps to make compost and
help revive that soil,” he adds.
Mansuy working in the garden next to the mall that houses his Yizhuang restaurant
At
first, he was disheartened to see a lack of insects and wildlife in the
soil necessary to make it healthy and help his veggies and plants
thrive. However, as the months wore on and the plants began to grow, he
was shocked to see that once barren patch of ground abounding with
“dragonflies, bees, butterflies, and all kinds of beneficial creepy
crawlies, which I thought would take much longer to come back.”
Mansuy began working on the garden in order to grow fresh ingredients for his restaurant
Thanks
to those insects, which ward off disease and promote growth, his garden
bloomed more rapidly than he could have imagined. “I didn’t expect the
lemongrass to even survive, but now they’re as tall as me!” he exclaims,
gesturing to the plant while standing in his leafy garden earlier this
fall.
Mansuy says such gardens have numerous benefits for concrete jungles like Beijing
Yet
the process was not without hiccups. As we talk, Mansuy also gestures
beyond the borders of his garden, to a large patch of dirt covered in
mesh beside the mall where his restaurant is located. Until recently, it
was also part of his lush plot.
Despite a major setback, he was still able to salvage a portion of the garden
So
what happened? On vacation back to France, Mansuy received a frantic
call from his gardener, who told him the mall’s owners needed to put new
water pipes in the ground, the path of which went straight through much
of the garden and would surely destroy most of his hard work. Instead
of panicking, Mansuy just remembers telling his staff to “Save the
expensive bay leaves! They’re the money plants!”
The garden is located on a formerly barren patch of ground in the south suburb of Yizhuang.
Even
though 80 percent of the garden got destroyed, including all the
wildflower patches and bushes that housed the insects and the birds, the
efforts on soil regeneration were successful, and since then Mansuy has
been glad to see what remains of the garden not only survive but
continue to thrive.
Mansuy says he was pleased to see "dragonflies, bees, butterflies and all kinds of beneficial creepy crawlies" appear in the garden.
He
also remains optimistic because “schools, malls, and other facilities
around Beijing can try this urban gardening technique and have gardens
of their own, and reduce their waste in the process. Imagine clinics
having benches and flower beds instead of dirt patches where people are
not even allowed to walk in. Wouldn’t that make the visits to the
hospitals much more pleasant for the kids? They’d come back twice as
often.”
Schools, malls, and other facilities around Beijing can try this urban gardening technique and have gardens of their own, and reduce their waste in the process.
“It, of course, won’t save the world or anything,” Mansuy says with a smile. However, if he can help spread the word about this technique and foster the greater appreciation for the environment and the outdoors, it’s more than worth the hard work and getting a little dirt under his fingernails. Aside from that, he adds: “So we know having plants around you at work and at home makes you feel safer, more grounded, but there are studies that show that even a silly green plant in a little pot at the office increases clerks’ creativity by 15 percent! And I think that would be hugely beneficial for people in any soul-grinding, concrete jungle modern megacity."
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