Kristina Frank poses with a broad grin next to the three-meter-high sycamore maple, then hints at a hug. “Like our prime minister,” she jokes, referring to the well-known photo by Markus Söder (CSU). Then the municipal officer has to tackle it: Together with Mayor Verena Dietl (SPD) and the managing director of Olympiapark München GmbH, Marion Schöne, she plants two of these trees below the Olympic Hall. With “women’s power” (O-Ton Dietl) they pull the sycamore maple 20 centimeters long to the already dug hole and insert it.
The tree is at an angle of what feels like 45 degrees. In order to straighten it out, the professionals have to do it. An employee of the forest administration helps, and when the tree is finally upright, the three women fill in the hole. The mayor works with ballerinas and spades, municipal officer Frank at least has boots on. The three shovel and shovel – until the forest management worker steps in and warns: “Not so much, otherwise the tree will suffocate.”
Dietl, Frank and Schöne didn’t necessarily come on Tuesday afternoon to do hard work in the Olympic Park. Rather, it is a symbolic date: the start of this year’s planting season as part of the city’s “500,000 trees in five years” project. In 2020, the city council decided to plant 100,000 trees a year on their own land over the next five years. So the project is almost halfway through. Time to draw an interim conclusion.
Frank, the chief forester in the state capital as a municipal officer, played a key role in pushing the project forward. She is satisfied with the progress so far: “We are more than right on schedule. It’s going excellently,” she praises. In 2021, 113,000 trees were planted, and in 2022 the target of 100,000 was just reached. And this year there were again 10,000 trees. However, a problem is slowly emerging: “We are actually trying to plant many of the 100,000 trees in the city area. But the areas are scarce and the competition is fierce,” says Frank. Therefore, the city is happy about every offer of space. Not only in Munich, by the way: In order to reach the 100,000 mark, trees are planted within a radius of up to 50 kilometers around Munich.
In the Olympic Park there are rules about what can be planted and where
A total of 25 new trees will be added to the Olympic Park by Easter. That is not so easy, explains Olympiapark Managing Director Schöne, after all there is a comprehensive set of rules for the listed site, where and what can be planted. The sycamore maple is one of these actually non-native tree species that are to become native to Munich as part of the project. Because the native spruce is in danger of dying out within the next 15 years, explains Frank. In addition to the sycamore maple, the service tree or the service tree are also planted, for example.
Every citizen can also help. Mayor Dietl, who had to think of her own garden during the planting campaign, also noticed this: “It was a lot of fun. I’ve already planted a few trees and I also remembered that I should do something in my mini garden again could.”