It’s buzzing and humming on the small patch of greenery on the corner of Georgenstrasse and Winzererstrasse. Bees feast on the nectar of the bright purple lavender flowers. Bumblebees dip their fluffy bodies purposefully into the calyxes of the numerous perennials, whose stalks reach up invitingly. In addition, daisies, hollyhocks and wild hops thrive, winding gracefully around the pole of a street sign. This almost tiny area on the border between Schwabing-West and Maxvorstadt, which Dorothee Haering has transformed into a mini cottage garden around a freshly planted tree, measures just six square meters.
This transformation was done with great attention to detail: not only wild bee hotels can be found in the midst of the flowers, small figurines such as a garden gnome or porcelain birds also act as eye-catchers. “It’s paradise,” enthuses a neighbor. He saw how the author and photographer watered the green oasis and is now dragging a full water canister. Just like that, without her asking him to. “I now know ten people who take care of my plants and the tree and water them when I’m not there,” says the 61-year-old.
Dorothee Haering puts a lot of effort into the plants.
(Photo: Stephan Rumpf)
Since she planted the bed in April of this year, her circle of acquaintances has multiplied. “Pedestrians stop when they see how I work here, we talk, the feedback is very positive.” Not a day goes by that people don’t come by and thank her for this feast for the eyes. Dorothee Haering, a real Munich child, is something of an activist. She does not represent any organization. But she is emphatically committed to ensuring that such small climate improvers and species protection helpers as she created on her doorstep are to be found in much greater numbers in the future. So far, only 72 green sponsors are active in the greenery along the roads in the Bavarian state capital.
For comparison: in Nuremberg it is already 1519. Why is that? “The bureaucratic hurdles are too high in Munich,” criticizes the owner of a graphics and marketing agency. It all starts with internet research. If you enter “Baumpate Nürnberg” in the Google search bar, the first hit is a reference to the city’s public space service. The same game practiced for Munich resulted in a goal for the Green City team in eighth place. In order to use this link, however, interested parties must already know about the cooperation between the municipality and the association when it comes to planting beds. Anyone who is not aware of this and would like to find out more on muenchen.de is forced to first click through five tabs on the portal: citizen service, commitment and hobbies, civic commitment, voluntary work and finally playground and green space sponsorship.
Wild bee hotels are also planned.
(Photo: Stephan Rumpf)
Obstacle number two is the complex conditions. While in Nuremberg it is enough to download a sponsorship agreement, fill it out and send it off in order to receive a municipal subsidy for the purchase of plants over 50 euros and an information sign for the area, in Munich you need a contract. Grünpate or Grünpatin may only be in the Isar metropolis who can prove a water connection with a hose to the planted area and can name at least two people who water regularly. Until three weeks ago, both people also had to present a police clearance certificate. “I should even specify who will take care of the bed when I die,” explains Haering.
After a conversation with the head of the horticultural building department, Florian Hochstätter, the point about the certificate of good conduct has now been settled, says Almut Schenk from the Green City association. “But that was the only thing we were allowed to do.” It still takes up to ten helpers in Munich on a given day to prepare the bed together with Green City. Because the planting is deliberately designed as a social project, according to the building department, it should “promote tolerance and understanding between young and old, women and men and different nationalities”. In Munich, areas around newly planted trees are also generally excluded from the project. The plants don’t cost anything for that.
Dorothee Haering has ignored all of these requirements, the small oasis in front of her door is not approved. “That’s why I had stomach pains at first,” she admits. She feared the bed could be flattened again. On the advice of the building department for horticulture, she subsequently contacted Green City after all. In the meantime, however, she is so far that she would “like to sit it out”. “The city of Munich,” calculates Hering, “will need 150 years to reach the number of green sponsors that Nuremberg will have in 2022 if it does not change its green sponsor concept.” Because Green City has so far only been able to realize around ten beds per year due to the extensive procedure.
With all the bureaucratic requirements, people lose interest
According to the building department, after an increase in the subsidy, the association “now has sufficient resources at its disposal to coordinate appropriate agreements with all those interested in green sponsorship in the future”. But with all the guidelines, Schenk knows, “people lose interest”. Haering, who lives in Maxvorstadt, has now invested around 800 euros in the sea of flowers at Georgenstrasse 123 – out of her own pocket. She has traveled far for it, bought resistant, hardy strains. “They,” she emphasizes, “I certainly won’t let them die of thirst.” Of course, she also waters the tree in the middle.
She also sees this as an argument for lowering the hurdles: “If someone takes care of planted tree pits, the trees are automatically watered as well.” The vegetation also protects the soil from drying out. A win-win situation. “We have climate change,” says Dorothee Haering. “I don’t want to hear that we have too much CO₂. I want something to happen here on a small scale.” She is committed to ensuring that the issue – as in Nuremberg – becomes a top priority. “It’s a real public concern: It’s good for the environment and society and, if organized properly, doesn’t require a lot of money now.” She knows of at least 15 people who would like to become green sponsors and would also like to spend something to do so. But they don’t want to do anything that’s actually illegal.