A day trip to the Palmetum is a worthy alternative for relaxing and taking a break away from the tourist crowds.
Sometimes you are looking for a draw to organise a day trip. You have already undertaken a number of them but found that many of these tourist sites are very crowded and you want to take it a little easier for once. Perhaps the Palmetum is what you are looking for.
The Palmetum in Santa Cruz is a 12-hectare botanical garden where a large palm tree family is on display; a single and unique project in which a landfill site was transformed into a botanical flora garden. In this realisation, several world-renowned organisations and ditto institutes collaborated to give the park the largest collection of island palm trees in the world.
Waste
The slogan ¡Palmetum Tenerife te gustará! did not come about by accident. The park opened to the public in 2014 after a remarkable history, recounting the occasion, cause and motivation of the 20 years that preceded this opening.
It all started in the early 1970s, when a landfill became too high and another use was sought for this piece of land. The dump officially closed its doors in 1983, by then the landfill was 40 metres high and was spreading stench and dust particles throughout the wider area.
Degassing
A complete renovation and rearrangement of the area was imminent when the auditorium was planned. The idea of creating a palm tree view there was conceived by engineer-agronomist Manuel Caballero in the early 1990s.
Around 1995-’96, the idea became a design and then a €4 million realisation. Not only did the construction of the botanical garden cost a lot of money, the removal, neutralisation and remediation of the landfill soil also consumed a lot of the budget. For instance, a degassing plant was installed to capture the gases from the fermenting subsoil.
Finishing
Meanwhile, ingineer Caballero and his team were preparing to plant a complete collection of palm trees. Not just any collection of palm trees but only specimens that grew on islands would be displayed.
Between 1997 and 1999, the octagonal museum, palm museum, artificial rivers and lakes, waterfalls and technical accommodations are built. The museum park is taking shape and colour. Great care is taken with the planting because palm trees from New Guinea, Borneo and the Philippines could not be fringed with southern European grasses. So, attention was paid to that too.
Species like Roystonea, Sabal, Cocos, Elaeis and Acoelorraphe are brought in and planted, along with more than a hundred other medium-sized palm species. The collection grows and becomes complete. Eventually, more than 400 species of palm trees are on display. An unprecedented feat.
After 18 years of thinking, planning, building and cultivating, the Palmetum was officially opened on 28 January 2014 in the presence of Princes Don Felipe and Doña Letizia, now King and Queen of Spain.
The collection is complete. It features palm trees from Africa, Asia, Australia, Central Asia, Central America, Madagascar, Hawaii, New Caledonia, Melanesia, the Mascarenes and, of course, the Canary archipelago.
Pixabay © Photography
Day trip to the Palmetum ©
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