At the end of March, mysterious QR codes appeared in the streets around the central station of Luxembourg City. At their origin, Heike Leichsenring, a forty-three-year-old German national who has been calling Luxembourg her home for nearly five years now. The code, when scanned, brings you to , named “Green Gare”.

Green Gare, as the group description states, is about making “Luxembourg's Gare district greener and more beautiful!” Delano contacted Leichsenring, who explained that the project had several aims. The most obvious one--planting flowers in the tree beds of the neighbourhood. Usually filled with litter or dog excrement, the beds seemed sad to Leichsenring, who says: “It was such a shame, there could be flowers everywhere. It would be more beautiful, it would be good for the bees, probably even good for the trees.”

Inspired by some of her neighbours, who took care of tree beds in front of their houses, Leichsenring picked up the hobby too. “Many people would shy away from doing that though because they don’t know how to get the official stamp of approval of the Ville de Luxembourg,” she explains.  Leichsenring recommends joining the municipality’s official . This provides a plaque that tells city maintenance staff not to cut down the weeds that are growing in a particular place. Leichsenberg has joined too, adopting three tree beds.

But while “every flower counts”, the initiative is also about getting to know other people living in the district. Leichsenring herself didn’t feel too connected to her neighbours, and so, armed with a few flyers, went on a mission to get more people involved. The idea of the Facebook group is to meet up, exchange information or even seeds for the flower beds, and support one another in the process of learning about flower gardening. Of course, anyone is welcome, regardless of skill--though Leichsenring mentions she would love to have a gardener in the mix--as it’s more about collaboration and nature than anything else.

And though the name makes the project seem exclusive, Leichsenberg explains that anyone in other cities can share their progress or start a movement in their own neighbourhood. As spring slowly but surely--despite the snow fall witnessed last week--makes its way to Luxembourg, and people leave their house more, Green Gare’s creator hopes that more will want to contribute to making this a social activity.

After all, as she puts it, “don’t we all need more beauty in our lives?”

Anyone interested can join the Green Gare group