From left to right: Serge Wilmes and Lydie Polfer (both City of Luxembourg), agriculture minister Romain Schneider and Ann Muller (Luga not-for-profit) Photo: Photothèque de la Ville de Luxembourg / Charles Soubry

From left to right: Serge Wilmes and Lydie Polfer (both City of Luxembourg), agriculture minister Romain Schneider and Ann Muller (Luga not-for-profit) Photo: Photothèque de la Ville de Luxembourg / Charles Soubry

Luxembourg’s first national horticultural exhibition, scheduled for May to October 2023, is being postponed until 2025, organisers announced on Monday.

The project for the garden show was first with a €10m budget, which has since more than doubled to €22m. Under the motto “Luxembourg Urban Garden”, the exhibition will take place across different areas of the capital, including the Pétrusse valley, the Pescatore park, Clausen, the Grund and Pfaffenthal, and Kirchberg.

But materials shortages and other supply problems mean the exhibition cannot go ahead as planned. “The anxieties of the health crisis, including the shortage of raw materials and labour, as well as economic uncertainties, significantly slowed down the progress of the exhibition project,” organisers said in a press release.

Themes of the exhibition in its four zones include projects without pesticides, education, food and climate change, mobility and tourism.

For the garden show, “Luga”, to be a success, more time is needed to work on projects, organisers said. The show is run by a not-for-profit created in cooperation between the agriculture ministry and the City of Luxembourg.

More than a hundred ideas for projects were submitted in the fields of agriculture, ecology, culture and tourism following a call for applications in 2019 to take part in the exhibition.

One main project is already well underway--the river, set to conclude at the end of 2023. With a price tag of nearly €26m, the project forms part of plans to improve the quality of Luxembourg rivers and lakes by restoring the natural conditions of the stream, for example removing its concrete bed.