Botanical Curb Chalking - Botanical Chalking

It's just becoming a hype: Botanical pavement crayons! If you go outside for a walk through the neighbourhood, for example, there are regular plants between the pavement tiles. Many call these “weeds”, but actually they are natural, Dutch, wild plants. And these are very important for, for example, the animals in your area. We prefer to leave these wild plants!

The so-called curb plants all have a name such as large plantain, small field cherry, shepherd's bag, red clover, purple dead nettle and sand rocket. In England and France it has been a trend to add the name with a (sidewalk) chalk: Botanical Chalking - Botanical sidewalk crayons!

This makes us all more aware of the wild plants present in the habitat, and you will learn something about the biodiversity around you! We can also deal with those little curb plants with respect!

The Hortus Botanicus in Leiden does research on curb plants. On their site you will find lots of nice information and posters with curbs to learn to name them. They have also come up with the Dutch initiative for botanical pavement crayons.

Curb plants are important for biodiversity, they provide shelters, breeding grounds and food for animals. They retain water and therefore have an impact on the climate.