Welcome to this new edition of our digital newsletter.
With nice to know and need to know about our association and our activities.
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In this edition:
► ELCA Tree of Friendship in Finland
► New series of online CoF inspiration sessions about to start
► ELCA defines position on limiting the levels of subcontracting
► Enjoying great landscape garden impressions in Finland
► October-fest in Brussels: building relations
► Welcome to our new member of the Committee of Firms!
► Agenda
Enjoy the ELCA-news!
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ELCA Tree of Friendship in Tampere
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October 9th, 2025, marked a special moment for ELCA. During this day, the ELCA Tree of Friendship was planted in Tampere, Finland. A great occasion that was attended by a large group of ELCA-members.
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Maybe this is the beginning of a tradition in ELCA. We plant a tree at every visit to an ELCA-member that we make during our series of professional excursions. In 2012 we planted a Tree of Friendship in the garden of the presidential palace of Malta. The tree is still very well taken care for as pictures of our colleague Andreas Hamacher showed us recently. In 2020, it was the idea to plant an ELCA Tree of Friendship at the Peace Palace in The Hague, The Netherlands. Due to the Covid pandemic the visit was cancelled. Rien van der Spek (at that time President of the Dutch association VHG) and Egbert Roozen (at that time director of VHG) planted the tree together on behalf of all ELCA members.
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And now we have the next ELCA Tree of Friendship in Tampere, Finland. Mrs Raija Tevaniemi, Mr Timo Koski, both municipality of Tampere, together with ELCA-President Henrik Bos and CoF-chairman Yasin Otuzoğlu took a spade in their hands and created an everlasting sign of our presence in Finland. Let’s hope, that planting a ELCA Tree of Friendship becomes a real tradition and underlines our bound as landscape gardeners for taking care for the quality of life on our earth and of our warm friendship.
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Innovative perennial plant concepts topic first online inspiration session season 2025/2026
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The winter season is now coming up very soon; time to start our new series of online inspiration sessions of the ELCA Committee of Firms. In sessions of one hour, we update you with information on a specific topic to enrich your green expertise and support you in your daily practice. We are delighted to let you know, that we have succeeded in composing a series of five monthly inspiration sessions with interesting keynote speakers.
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The first online inspiration session is about to start and takes place on Friday November 14th. You like to know more about perennial plant concepts?
This your chance!
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How to choose and apply innovative perennial plant concepts?
Rich flowering plants borders catch the eye. People admire them, as it is also a place for amongst others bees and butterflies. Landscape gardeners seek for the right combination of perennials to achieve this wonderful effect. But that is a challenge, not only in choosing the right combination of plants as well as how to maintain the plants borders and keep them attractive.
Lageschaar Vaste Planten, based in The Netherlands and founded 45 years ago, has a large experience with perennials. Their mission is to support the development of a green, biodiverse and sustainable outdoor spaces. Based on their knowledge, they succeeded in developing innovative perennial plant concepts such as Fleur Dansant, Prairie Garden and Wildissimo. How did they develop these concepts, what are the characteristics, what is needed in preparation and maintenance and how can the landscape gardener work with these concepts? Sipke Terpstra, advisor on plant design at Lageschaar Vaste Planten, provides us with the answers to these questions during this interesting first online inspiration session.
We hope to meet you during the online inspiration session on November 14th and are already looking forward to the presentation of Sipke.
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PS: maybe you can already reserve the other upcoming online inspiration sessions in this new series in your agenda. They take place on December 12th, January 16th, February 13th and March 13th and start at 9.00 CET.
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ELCA point of view on limiting the levels of subcontracting
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Within the European Commission and the European Parliament there is a discussion ongoing on limiting the number of subcontracting levels and extending the liability to the entire subcontracting chain. The idea is that, by doing so, labour law problems can be avoided.
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The European Landscape Contractors Association (ELCA), representing national associations of landscape garden companies in 23 EU member states and with associate representation in Canada, Japan, Norway, Saudi-Arabia, Singapore, Switzerland, Türkiye and the United Kingdom, has made an orientation on this discussion and comes to the following considerations:
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Our role in the value chain
Landscape garden companies often work in subcontracting relations for example in taking care for planting trees in a larger road construction project or install green roofs and facades on buildings. At the same time landscape garden companies work with subcontractors themselves when they want to hire extra capacity for specific jobs like tree pruning at arborists or extra workers during seasonal peeks.
Landscape garden companies are to be characterized as small and medium sized companies who can, depending on the size and complexity of the project or the needed capacity and expertise, either be main contractor or subcontractor.
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Their focus is on the creation and maintenance of greenery and nature-based solutions in the private and public domain and on/in buildings. In their market orientation most of the companies have a scope on local/regional opportunities, the number of national players is limited and only a few work within a European company setting.
Although the amount of landscape garden companies is growing all over Europe, we see market concentration in the middle and larger company segments and at the same time more start-ups and a larger group of self-employed in the smaller company segment in the private garden domain and specific activities like tree care and indoor greening.
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One of the biggest challenges for the companies, like also in other sectors, is organizing the workforce. We see a higher demand from society to find solutions for climate change, biodiversity loss and pressure on public health. This touches on the essence of the work of the landscape garden sector, which now more and more concentrates on delivering ecosystem services and societal benefits. As a consequence, the sector is working on innovative solutions and dedicated skills and is moving from the end of the contracting chain to being involved at the beginning of the policy-, planning-, and design process of a project. From that point of view our role and position in the value chain is changing.
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Subcontractor or main contractor
Looking at the evolving trend in the market and the societal demand towards landscape garden companies, it would be favourable that they have a more prominent position in the preparation and implementation of projects with a nature-based solutions component. Looking at the diversity of projects there can be no one-size fits all approach and that counts also for the idea of limiting the levels of subcontracting. We see more merit in taking nature-based solutions into account at the beginning of the project phase, to involve landscape garden professionals in an early stage of the process by for example market consultation and ‘Bouwteams’ and to divide the project in a way that specific green lots are presented for public procurement. This should be a standard procedure and responsibility for tendering authorities. Depending on the tender that has been put on the market, the landscape garden company can be the main contractor or the subcontractor. ELCA feels that we should leave this to the market instead of putting this into a directive or law.
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Solution in division into lots and current EU-labour laws
The motivation for limiting the levels of subcontracting concentrates predominately on tackling labour law problems. As a solution, also extending liability to the entire subcontracting chain has been suggested. We support the starting point that unjust labour conditions in the subcontracting chain must be eradicated. We are however not convinced that limiting the number of subcontracting levels will solve the envisaged labour law problems. We see more merit in looking at the daily public procurement practice in which the division of projects in specific green lots can be a solution to limit the number of subcontracting levels. This is also what we plead for in the current evaluation of the EU Public Procurement Directives. The European Employer’s Institute concludes in a recent study, that there are already several different types of legislative means to address labour law problems in subcontracting chains in existing EU law. From that perspective we would recommend to evaluate and strengthen the existing legislative labour framework, instead of taking initiatives on limiting the number of subcontracting levels and extending the liability in the subcontracting chain.
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Conclusion
ELCA supports the aim of tackling labour law problems in subcontracting, but we are not convinced that limiting the levels of subcontracting and extended liability will solve them. We recommend instead to focus on the division into specific green lots in the daily public procurement practice and to make use of the possibilities in the existing laws to prevent labour law problems in subcontracting.
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Enjoying great landscape garden impressions in Finland
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‘Nature-based solutions’ is no longer an abstract word. During our recent professional excursions to Finland, we have seen in concrete projects how greenery contributes to a better climate, biodiversity and public health.
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On our Instagram account you will find an impression of the great projects that we have visited. A picture report will be published on our website soon.
We hope these pictures will inspire you, give you a good feeling about your experiences in Finland and encourages you to join our next professional excursions in Austria. Please reserve May 14th till 17th, 2026, already in your agenda.
We will get acquainted then with the state of the art on landscape gardening in Austria with innovative and inspiring projects!
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October-fest in Brussels: building relations
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Have you ever been to the famous October Fest in Bavaria? It highlights the beautiful and rich culture of this part of Germany. The October Fest has now also become a tradition in Brussels.
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Bavaria presents itself with this special edition of the fest in the Brussels Cinquantenaire Park to its European partners. It was great to see that delegations of for example the Cabinets of EU-Commissioners, members of the EU-Parliament, multinationals and stakeholder groups enjoyed the atmosphere of the October-fest to build relations. Our German colleagues of BGL and the BGL-Bavarian member association have put their best foot forward to present the landscape garden sector at this special occasion. Egbert Roozen, ELCA Secretary-General, joined the BGL-delegation to expand our common Brussels network.
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Welcome to our new member of the Committee of Firms!
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The network of ELCA is ever growing and it is great when more new members join!
We are proud that the following company have recently joined the ELCA Committee of Firms:
- from Hungary: Két Kertész Kft
From all of us: welcome to ELCA and we hope to meet you soon during our events!
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In your daily practice, your agenda fills itself very quickly with all kinds of activities. But there are things, you don’t want to miss. So, make reservations in your agenda for the following events:
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Date
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Event
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November 17th – 20th, 2025
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Piscina in Barcelona, Spain
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December 2nd – 4th, 2025
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Paysalia in Lyon, France
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May 14th – 17th, 2026
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Professional excursions ELCA Committee of Firms, Austria
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Interested in visiting Paysalia? Book your tickets HERE
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Did we miss an event that you think should be in this agenda?
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We hope this digital newsletter gave you a lot of information and inspiration. We wish you a nice day and keep ourselves recommended for your feedback and suggestions.
Thank you to our Board member Lutze von Wurmb for the pictures in this newsletter!
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ELCA is the European Landscape Contrators Association.
Our aim is to promote coorperation as well as the exchange of information and experience in Europe. Est 1963.
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