BERLIN, April 17 (Xinhua) -- German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier and Baden-Wuerttemberg's Prime Minister Winfried Kretschmann officially opened the federal horticultural show (BUGA) in Heilbronn on Wednesday.
Speaking at the opening ceremony, German President Steinmeier praised the work of the organizers and gardeners who had "literally set the earth in motion".
Steinmeier emphasized that "man needs inspiration, he needs culture, he needs nature, in short: he needs beauty", which could all be found at the BUGA show in Heilbronn.
The organizers of the event, the German horticultural show society (DBG), said around 2,000 invited guests attended the opening ceremony.
Hundreds of gardeners have been working on preparing the garden show, including planting one million bulbs and almost 1,000 trees last fall. The exhibition area spans 40 hectares.
Work on the show began in 2013, with a capital expenditure of 144 million euros (163 million U.S. dollars) and implementation costs of 51 million euros.
Heilbronn's mayor, Harry Marl was pleased that "inaccessible and previously industrially used riverside areas will become accessible and tangible park landscapes."
For the first time in the history of the German horticultural show, architecture will also be presented on the grounds to give visitors a preview of a new city quarter called "Neckarbogen".
The show's new format "takes up social themes and sets the course for the future," said Hanspeter Faas, managing director of the garden show Heilbronn 2019.
The BUGA in Heilbronn will run for six months, finishing in October. The DGB said it expecting between 13,000 to 30,000 visitors a day during this time.
Since its establishment in 1951, the garden show BUGA has become one of the largest exhibitions on horticulture and landscape architecture in Europe.
According to the German horticultural society, the BUGA had "not only sought to be a presentation area for the services of the horticultural trade, but also an engine of urban development".
