Just in time for the meteorological start of summer on June 1st, the town hall blossoms. On Wednesday, city gardeners installed the 111 flower boxes that adorn the building annually. This year they were a week later than usual, as Petra Simon explains, responsible for floristry and interior greening in the horticulture department: “We always wait for May 15th, the cold Sophie, and then until the championship celebration of the FC Bayern is over.”
And that happened later this year, which was not due to the title win in the last minute of the last matchday, but to the Winter World Cup in Qatar, which was squeezed into the Bundesliga schedule. If the flowers were already at the town hall at the championship celebration, you would hardly see the players, says Simon; in exuberance the plants could also be damaged.
After the FC Bayern footballers stopped by last Sunday, Mayor Dieter Reiter (SPD) is now looking forward to other guests: “I hope there will be a lot of visitors from the Munich bees, who can now help themselves to more than 1000 plants in the town hall .” As has been the norm for a number of years, the floral decoration has once again been designed to be bee-friendly and therefore very colorful compared to the geraniums that used to be the norm: coleus, magic snow, magnificent candles, snapdragons, liver balm, flour sage, basil and zinnias, as well as dandelions, fan flowers and sweet potatoes adorn the town hall. “We’re always testing new types and varying them a bit,” says Petra Simon, “but basically we’ve found a mix that we’re sticking with for now.”
When making a selection, a certain size is important because of the “long-distance effect”, as Simon puts it. People should be able to see the flowers from afar. The color effect changes over the course of the summer, depending on what is blooming.
City gardeners are relaxed about climate change. Plants that tolerate sun and heat are needed for the town hall anyway. It is fertilized once and currently watered three times a week, in July and August a little more often, if it gets particularly hot even daily. Because the stone of the town hall facade retains heat for a long time, the flowers can stay in their 111 boxes for a long time. “We only clear them up,” says Petra Simon, “when the Christmas tree comes.”