On October 7, 2024, the Tree Day was held in the Secret Garden at the Jewish cemetery in Bielsko-Biała, with 90 participants. The event was accompanied by the inauguration of the project “Planting Our Future – Sadzimy Przyszłość” dedicated to the exchange of knowledge and experience in the field of tree planting and care initiatives in Poland, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia, supported by the International Visegrad Fund. The event began with the joint planting of 3 hawthorns(Crataegus L.) and 2 cornelian cherries(Cornus mas L.) by guests and partners – representatives of the Bielsko-Biała and Rybnik City Offices, the Jewish Religious Community in Bielsko-Biała, the Bielsko Forest District, the Wilkowice Commune, Fundusz Partnerstwa, as well as guests from abroad – Nadace Partnerství from the Czech Republic and Nadácia Ekopolis from Slovakia, and principals, teachers, students from the Waldorf High School, the 8th General Secondary School and Primary School No. 27 in Bielsko-Biała.

During the event, various educational workshops for students from local schools were held:

  1. Dendrology workshops – participants were invited to take part in a walk around the Jewish cemetery and the Secret Gardens, during which they learned about the various species of trees and shrubs growing in this place, the process of natural succession, and invasive plants growing here.
  2. Ecological and artistic workshop “The Path of the Poem”, during which participants worked on short poems related to the rhythm of nature (haiku) and prepared an artistic installation placed into the landscape of the Secret Garden.
  3. Workshops on biodiversity combined with making flower balls, during which participants learned what biodiversity is and also made flower balls with seeds of a native flower meadow, which will be sown in the Secret Garden in the place of the systematically removed invasive species – Japanese knotweed.
  4. Workshops on building hotels for pollinators and discovering an old beehive, during which participants built houses for wild pollinators from wooden elements and filled them with reed and clay, and also learned about the history and construction of an old beehive found in the Secret Garden.
  5. Workshops on bees, during which participants got to know the educational apiary located in the Secret Garden and learned about the life of bees, as well as making a candle from beeswax.