For many centuries, people in South Limburg have been planting fruit trees around their house: apples, pears, plums, cherries and nuts. There was a hawthorn hedge around the fruit meadow and cows grazed under the trees.
Due to the rise of low-stem fruit cultivation, many standard fruit trees were cut down after the Second World War. Others fell into disuse. This resulted in the loss of an important landscape and ecological function. After all, standard fruit trees are particularly valuable for biodiversity.
Alden Biesen is the standard orchard of Flanders. The landscape around the Landcommanderij is one of the few places in Flanders where the typical standard orchard landscape has remained intact. The standard orchards on the domain together form a fructuary in which old fruit varieties are preserved. More than 40 hectares of standard fruit orchards, organically managed, are fully fruitful at the end of September. However, the trees are at their best during the blossom period.
Standard fruit trees are also very important from a cultural-historical point of view and the development of new fruit varieties. They contain an enormous source of genetic diversity of fruit varieties.
For this reason, the planting, restoration and conservation of standard orchards occupies an important place within the operation of Regional Landscape Haspengouw and Voeren, often as part of a larger landscape project.