By Gunnar Schupelius
The green areas are being redesigned to be “pollinator-friendly” by the district offices so that the insects feel at home. That doesn’t look nice and isn’t in the interests of the residents, says Gunnar Schupelius.
The green space offices of the districts are doing away with the classic flower bed. Lawns and shrubs should also no longer exist.
Instead, sandy areas are laid out on which wild herbs grow at large intervals. The program is called “pollinator-friendly city”: wild bees and other insects that have allegedly lacked a habitat until now should feel comfortable.
This experiment has already failed at Kottbusser Damm in Kreuzberg. There, the central reservation was cleared and turned into a “flowering strip”. But nothing blooms, it is a wasteland. In the middle of this wasteland are “deadwood piles”. These are wire crates filled with twigs and tree stumps. Insects should feel comfortable there. Unfortunately, local residents have already thrown their rubbish on top of the deadwood piles.
This is what Kottbusser Damm looks like now: mowed fallow land. Flowers should actually sprout here that attract insects Photo: Ralf Gunther
The withered flowering strips with piles of dead wood on Kottbusser Damm are just one example of the “pollinator-friendly city” that the green space authorities are aiming for.
The result can be seen everywhere: On the small mountain of rubble in Volkspark Friedrichshain, in Alice-Salomon-Park (Schöneberg), in Bürgerpark Pankow, at Schäfersee (Reinickendorf), on Monbijouplatz (middle) and on Rüdesheimer Platz in Wilmersdorf.
There is a particularly large bed in front of the Siegfried Fountain, which is planted with fresh flowers every spring. The gardeners arranged them artistically so that they formed a large pattern.
There were dark red dalias and begonias, pansies, violets, yellow and red stinging nettles, roses of all kinds. The flowers were replanted in the summer, and it was green and blooming until autumn.
The residents sat at this bed night after night. They met for a picnic. Wine from Rüdesheim is served at the top of the fountain.
That spring the flowers didn’t come back. Now all you can see on the Rüdesheimer Platz is sand and the occasional clump of small plants. Everything is colourless. Local residents are disappointed and don’t understand.
The district office announced that it was “a permanent, insect-friendly perennial planting”. The responsible city councilor Oliver Schruoffeneger (Greens) explained that this planting is “not only a visual highlight”, but also contributes “to biodiversity”, i.e. to the variety of insects.
That may be so, but there was already a great variety on the bed in the past. The different flowers attracted bees and bumblebees. You could really hear that.
Rüdesheimer Platz has always been “pollinator-friendly”. You wouldn’t have had to desolate the bed for that. And the redesign is of course by no means a visual highlight.
The smart guys in the district offices who are remodeling our beds should ask the residents. They don’t think it’s nice at all. They want to see flowers and not a desert. Where are we living?
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