My name is Péter Rácz, founder of edenpont.com, and before that

Garden designer and landscape architect for 17 years

My gardener team and I created beautiful gardens and other unforgettable works, of which I am still proud. In my opinion, the time being spent in the building industry feels twice as much as it really is. For me –a creative, careful and perfectionist man– this period felt three times longer, so after a while, I’ve realized I need to do something else. Something, which still connects to gardens, but what can be that? It is known from Winnie the Pooh that sitting down, mumbling ‘Think! Think! Think!’ and concentrating hard is sometimes not enough to come up with an idea.

I was lucky

Back in 2012, me and one of my clients, with the help of some enthusiastic volunteers, started a movement in Hungary, focusing on organizing visits to private gardens. By now, the movement spread well, though we went against the conventional rules: the small-sized groups followed a completely different philosophy compared to festivals trying to attract masses. Our ambition was to open as many private gardens to the public as possible, and with the persistent work of the team, this dream became real. More and more hosts joined with their garden, not to mention the increasing number of enthusiastic visitors!

Yet, the small group size has one disadvantage. It is hard to keep stable the balance of business, as the work is separated into tiny but demanding bits. Unfortunately, we did not find a solution to this problem. Serious tasks were had to be done (e.g. a launch of a new website), which increased our expenditure. We knew we had to act if we didn’t want to lose all the efforts put into the successful offset.

There were two options to continue our work:

The first one is looking for sponsors, which would be useful, but to be honest not the basic root of a sustainable model.

The second and the winner option was to spread the movement and reach a size which is worth developing.

Spreading the movement means expanding geographically, as well as expanding the range of services the movement offers, trying to introduce them in all countries where garden enthusiasts live. Our aim is that anyone who would like to attend enriching and friendly garden events, either near their home or abroad, would be able to find a suitable programme.

Last but not least, the movement was renamed Edenpont. After eight months of further development, a new website has been created which is now available in English as well. The range of our offers is expanding, too: garden events and green tours will appear in our programmes besides garden visits.

I (on the behalf of my team as well) do trust that Edenpont will be satisfying to all garden enthusiast. Please encourage your friends wherever they live to attend our programmes, follow and read us. We hope to see you soon in our events! (To be continued)