Flemish students visiting The Maasheggen

Piet Hopman (Staatsbosbeheer) and Marius Grutters (owner of the Limosa estate and connoisseur of the area) showed 35 first-year students from the Hogeschool Gent around De Maasheggen at the end of March . The Flemish students began their studies in Garden and Landscape Architecture earlier this school year.

Marius Grutters took the students exploring the area south of the bridge near Oeffelt, while Piet Hopman showed another group the Oeffelter Meent.

Teacher Luc Deschepper made the following report of the field trip:

On March 24, landscape architecture students visited the Maasheggen area. Several excursions were scheduled during that project week. Maximum use is made of excursions within the course. This allows students to learn from the real working field of the landscape architect.

There were several reasons for putting Maasheggen on the agenda. First, the area still clearly shows the influence of the underlying physical system on the way it was reclaimed for agriculture. In addition, Maasheggen is also a good reference image for the historical situation as we know it as depicted on the Map of the Austrian Netherlands. This historical map, published in 1777, is frequently used in historical landscape research. Besides its historical image reference value, Maasheggen was also chosen as an inspirational source to use hedges - in the western part of Flanders we use the term hedgerows for this purpose - in an artistic and formal way in landscape design. To illustrate the possibilities of this, the work of Danish landscape architect C. Th. Sørensen was discussed prior to the excursion. The allotment complex in Nærum, designed by him in 1952, still shows the current possibilities of using hedges as an organizing and protective green structure.

Last, but not least, Maasheggen was visited for its high visual amenity value. It was unfortunately too early for the impressive sight of the flowering hawthorn. The subtle flowering of the blackthorn and the fresh green budding leaves of the hawthorn, on the other hand, provided the intro of budding spring. By experiencing yourself, you can create designs to experience. To teach this to the students, in the morning, prior to the informative guided excursion in the afternoon, a walk was taken from south to east in the De Bergjes subarea. At the end of the walk, we were met by Piet Hopman. He guided one half of the group after lunch in the Natura 2000 area Oeffeltermeent. The different subprojects in the area were explained: the development of stream valley grassland; the improvement of the habitat of the crested newt; the practice hedges of the Dutch Championship 2022 and the clay extraction in relation to the preservation of the Maasheggen landscape.

The other half of the group visited the Oeffelt Meadows under the guidance of Marius Grutters. The main focus of the walk was the restoration and preservation of the Maasheggen landscape as a cultural-historical monument. Were we too early for the hawthorn explosion, we could admire the result of the Dutch Championship 2022 that took place a week earlier. The expert explanation of the technique for braiding and its management the following years was followed with full attention by the students.

After a closing drink and a pleasant chat with the guides in Het Veerhuis, the journey home began. While reading the handbook on hedges and hedge weaving, a half-hour traffic jam near Eindhoven could not bother us. It was an inspiring day.

Luc Deschepper
and other accompanying colleagues Marjolein Eggermont, Bart Depestel and Steve Van Ryckeghem