Initiative for flower ribbon in Hoorn “as a super promotion of the city”

The 67-year-old resident of Hoorn is retired and therefore walks around his hometown about four times a week. “I regularly notice something. For example, this dike, which in my eyes has the appearance of a dead bird,” says Alex Pierlo. “Because it’s still new and they’re busy building the city beach further up the road, I don’t think grass has been sown. But the weeds are all creeping up now.”

Partly for this reason, he came up with the idea of ​​laying a ribbon of flowers on this stretch of several hundred metres. In addition to the brand new city beach that must be completed, this could be an extra promotion for the city of Hoorn, according to the Horinees.

Traffic in the direction of Alkmaar encounters the same ribbon of flowers near Stompetoren. “Because our daughter lives in Alkmaar, we regularly drive past it. It just looks beautiful and is very colorful. I think it can certainly be something for Hoorn, and for a municipality it is less of an effort in terms of costs than if people do it privately,” explains Alex, who received a lot of positive support from other residents of Hoorn after posting his initiative.

Important for bees

One of the residents who supports the idea for a flower ribbon is Arjan Buur. Two years ago, the 49-year-old resident of Hoorn already provided a number of ‘flower bombs’ in the municipality, where hundreds of seeds were planted with other enthusiasts. “This is quite easy to achieve.”

Arjan responded to the initiator’s message by saying that he still has about a kilo of flower seed at home, good for about 200 square meters of flowers. “It is simply very important to have enough places like this,” Buur continues. “In recent years, more and more bee species are becoming extinct and the bee is extremely important for our food. It also looks very nice, because of all the different colors in the flowers.”

Contact with municipality

However, Buur does not know whether the proposed place is a suitable location to place the flower ribbon, because many people walk along the dike. “Maybe a quieter place is better,” he says. “But first we need to know whether the municipality of Hoorn is open to this initiative. And whether they want to help, for example by using an excavator that digs a trench where the sands can be implanted. What they certainly have to guarantee is that there will be not mowed in the month of May.”

Because of his ‘flower bombs’, Arjan Buur has kept in touch with the green management of the municipality of Hoorn in recent years. He and Alex have already contacted each other this afternoon about the initiative. On Monday, Arjan wants to inquire with green management, or the alderman involved. “We just have to do this, as far as I’m concerned.”