The heritage grounds of Valthe – ‘the archaeological pearl of Drenthe’ – are back to what they used to be. At least, that was the aim of the farmyard restoration project of Landschapsbeheer Drenthe that was recently completed.
Landscape Management visited a total of 36 farms in old Valthe. The aim was to provide property owners with advice about all types of plants that used to grow in the historic part of the village around the yards. “The intention was to redecorate old Valthe as it used to be,” says Marcel Knol of Landschapsbeheer Drenthe.
Since 2017, the year in which the original residents’ initiative started, ‘an enormous amount has changed’, according to Knol. Several villagers came at the time with the wish to restore Valthe to its former glory. They therefore decided to approach the municipality of Borger-Odoorn.
Now, seven years later, the residents’ initiative has grown into a major project led by Landschapsbeheer Drenthe, but that does not mean that the residents no longer have a say. Knol: “We really started looking at what the yards looked like in the past based on the wishes of the residents and which plants do and do not belong on old Drenthe yards on an ash tree.”
“There was a certain type of planting that was undesirable,” Knol explains. “Conifers, for example, do not belong here on the ash tree. The planting here was sober and functional. We tried to ‘talk it out’ to the residents. Not as an obligation, but we gave advice on how the yards should look. saws.”
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