Regenerative Christmas Tree System

Vom Boden aus Denken: Thinking from the Soil up...

This is what regenerative farm Gut & Bösel from Alt Madlitz, Germany take radically seriously. On extremely sandy, degraded land—with very little rainfall and hardly any nutrients—they are building regenerative agriculture as a response to climate change, biodiversity loss, and our increasingly disconnected relationship with nature. Not despite these harsh conditions, but because of them.

Across 3,000 hectares, they work with multifunctional land-use methods: holistic grazing management, composting, syntropic agroforestry, forest transformation, and even the development of their own software and measurement systems. Their land functions as a real-life laboratory. Through the Finck Foundation, they collaborate with universities and research institutes to measure what truly matters: soil and plant health, carbon storage, biodiversity, yields. Knowledge that is shared, enabling other landscapes to regenerate.

A powerful example of this approach is their regenerative Christmas tree system:the tree is topped halfway and sold, after which a new leader grows from the same trunk. After around four years, another tree can be harvested from the same root system—without destroying it. The soil remains intact, the mycelium network stays alive. The tree remains, but more importantly: the system stays healthy.

This thinking lies at the heart of ROOTS. Not the object, but the soil from which everything emerges. Design, agriculture and material choices begin with care for the land. When we design from the soil up, we design for the future. This beautiful regenerative farming method also applies here in the Netherlands with other tree species. I will return to this in more depth in Milano, for we will show you exactly stunning examples of this...!

X S🌱