Medical plants park puts up various types of shoots

ISTANBUL-Anatolia News Agency

The Medical Plants park will be established within the Şelale Park (L), which is being constructed in Istanbul’s Tuzla neighborhood. The park will be home to 150 types of annual and multi-annual plants.

Turkey’s first “Medical Plants Park,” which will provide locals with access to gardens along with other amenities, is being established in Istanbul’s Tuzla district. The park will be established on an area of 9,000 square meters at Şelale Park, which has been constructed by Tuzla Municipality on the Aydınlı highway.

Justice and Development Party (AKP) Istanbul deputy Mehmet Domaç, who is contributing to the project, said the park would be home to 150 types of medical plants, including annual and multi-annual ones. Domaç said the park would have both open-growing areas and greenhouse areas.

“Multi-annual plants will make contributions to the flora. If people want to learn about how to grow annual plants, they will have the opportunity to receive practical and theoretical instruction on annual plants. There will also be small areas in the park for those who want to grow plants there. Medical substances in the plants here will be analyzed and processed to turn into drugs. They will be packaged and sold to citizens,” he said.

Domaç said the goal was to grow endemic plants that are unique to Turkey. “But since the park will play an educative role, we will also evaluate the plants that are growing in other countries. For example, ginkgo is not our plant but we will use this plant, which is known as ‘gingko biloba,’ in the park for education.”

Domaç said students would also be given a chance to come to the park and learn about how to grow plants. “We will let them make paintings of plants and also encourage them to grow plants.”

Art Gallery
The deputy said the park would also include an art gallery and small ateliers where artists could carry out their own work.

“Artists will be able to work in these ateliers and exhibit them in this art gallery. The gallery will have a café and an area for discussions. Artists and citizens will come together here and organize events,” he said.

He said there were similar examples of medical plants parks in the United States, Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom.

“There is also a small medical plants park in Istanbul’s Zeytinburnu district but the one in Tuzla will be on a large scale. The project work continues for the park, and we estimate that the construction will be finished in a year,” he said.

Domaç said there were more than 3,000 medical plants in the world. “Thanks to its geographical location, Istanbul is available for each type of plants.”
He said medical plants were being grown in countries like Germany and France, where the practice had become an industry.

“This is less in Turkey but we don’t have enough sufficient investments [to do something similar]. Daphne is the most marketed used and the most marketed plant in Turkey. We also have thyme and garden sage but not in great numbers,” Domaç said.