The Garden of the Wellington Hotel. A very special urban garden

Hello to all agrohuerters! Today I want to talk to you about the garden at the Wellington hotel. It is a very special urban garden. Can you imagine an organic garden in a hotel in the center of Madrid? Well, it exists, and it turns out that there is the largest urban garden on a hotel rooftop in the world.

How are you? How about your orchards? I hope you all have a great time and remind you that despite the fact that a month has passed, our proposal for HOW I PREPARE MY GARDEN: AGROHUERTO.COM WANTS YOUR ADVICE.So we insist and encourage you once again to send us your photos and advice Meanwhile we are visiting orchards that we found and the one that we present to you today is somewhat different.

I present it to you in the following lines

The Wellington Hotel and the idea of ​​a garden on its roof

The Wellington is one of Madrid’s 5-star hotels located on Calle de Velázquez. That’s right, in the heart of the Recoletos neighborhood in the Salamanca district. As an anecdote, the building served as General Miaja’s command center during the Civil War.

Currently, the president of the hotel is Manuel Moratiel and it is he who begins to develop the idea of ​​setting up an urban garden. This is due to the fact that, traveling through different countries, he observed the importance that the vegetable garden is beginning to take on in haute cuisine.

To give shape to this idea that began in March of this year, he has had the collaboration of chef Floren Domezáin, director of the prestigious Zaragoza restaurant “Raíces ”.

Raised in Arguedas, for many he is the «king of vegetables» and it is not for less since his knowledge in these is very extensive since as he tells us:

My grandfather was a farmer, my father was a farmer and I am a farmer

After leaving Barricada, he turned fully to agricultural production. Proof of this is that, for example, he moved to France to import colored lettuce, specialized in vegetables from the Ribera del Ebro to recover native varieties, or began to develop natural techniques to improve the quality of his products. All this can be seen in the price of his crops, to give you an idea a kilo of tear peas is around 500 euros. Quality production that privileged pockets can taste.

Therefore, Manuel Moratiel wanted Floren Domezáin to set up an urban garden on the roof of his hotel so that later his harvest could be tasted in a new restaurant inside the Wellington, «Las Raíces del Wellington». This restaurant is inside the hotel and it is the chef who is in charge of the kitchen.

How the Garden of the Wellington Hotel was made

We already have the expert, let’s see how we mount everything on a roof. As you may be thinking, the construction was not easy to put into practice, since raising 70 tons of earth from Tudela to the roof of a hotel in the center of Madrid is complicated. Not only because of the access to the roof from the street, but also because of the calculation of the weight that the space could support.

All the design of the terraces as well as the selection of the plants has been carried out by Floren. In part, he «felt at home» since the characteristic climate of Madrid is similar.

In this link that we post you can see the entire process of setting up the orchard in about 3 minutes:

The result of the urban garden on the roof of the Wellington is…

That the Wellington has the largest urban garden on the roof of a hotel in the world. 14 organic farming terraces with 4,200 species and 35 varieties of organic plants that occupy an area of ​​300 square meters.

This orchard has been a great attraction not only for hotel guests but also for residents of the area who come to see it. From the hotel management they explained to us that to manage it, interested people can contact the hotel and make a small visit. In addition, many national and international media wanted to do reports. Miami, Televisa or newspapers like El País or ABC have a report on the Wellington orchard.

More about the Garden of the Wellington Hotel

Speaking with Floren Domezáin, he told us that the substrate they use is horse substrate and that they prevent pests with pulverized sulfur or the placement of the tobacco plant. Although they have not had any pest or problem during these months. In addition, being at the top of a building, the plants have continuous ventilation. Also say that the aromatic ones have them in a separate terrace for aesthetics.

They use drip irrigation and they already have everything planned for the winter garden, even if they had to cover it up.

Another thing we found on the roof of the Hotel Wellington was that the Community of Madrid decided to set up a project for the recovery of tomatoes native to the area. A good project that we hope the Community will also take into account for other orchards in the area that are doing a fantastic job like Wellington’s.

We hope you have been interested in this report and see you soon again at Agrohuerto.com

See you in the orchard!