[HN Gopher] Bee-friendly urban wildflower meadows prove a hit wi...
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Bee-friendly urban wildflower meadows prove a hit with German city
dwellers
Author : rapnie
Score : 124 points
Date : 2021-06-20 17:55 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theguardian.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theguardian.com)
| DerSaidin wrote:
| I first read the title as "beer-friendly urban wildflower
| meadows", and thought that would indeed make a lovely beer
| garden.
|
| Maybe these meadows could serve bees and beers? :)
| hangonhn wrote:
| Can any Googlers confirm or deny if this is also what Google is
| doing near their campus? I was out walking my dogs near the
| Google campus and was just stunned by the landscaping that looks
| like a bunch of unmanicured wild flowers in bloom. It was
| simultaneously beautiful but very natural looking. There were
| definitely a lot of bees and "life" around them. As a resident of
| Mountain View, I really appreciated it but wasn't sure if it was
| deliberate and if it was, if this is a new trend.
| neonate wrote:
| https://archive.is/IqKd9
| Tomte wrote:
| Our municipality even gave out such a seed mix for free.
|
| If you're buying somewhere (supermarket etc.): caveat emptor.
|
| Many of the flower mixes are neither native nor appropriate for
| common native insects, but designed for beauty.
|
| It may be a good idea to search for reputable vendors.
|
| There are "famous" standardized mixes in Germany, but I cannot
| remember the names.
| fredley wrote:
| In the city I live in we are lucky to have a lot of parks, but
| also they leave the grass uncut in large portions of them. It
| grows long, with flowers and other plants providing greater
| biodiversity and a habitat for many more insects and small
| creatures.
|
| Some short grass is good, but the overabundance of lawns--
| particularly as the default coverage for parks and gardens--is a
| big problem.
| sohkamyung wrote:
| In Singapore, during last year's Circuit Breaker to break a
| surge in COVID-19 infections, the grass verges were left uncut
| (grass cutters were not allowed to work). It led to a surge in
| butterflies in my local area.
|
| Sadly, it ended after the Circuit Breaker ended, but I did
| notice some local parks now having long grass that would have
| been cut in previous years.
|
| Here's a commentary about that period in the local papers.
|
| https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/commentary/covid-19-cir...
| techsupporter wrote:
| This is something that cities the world over should be doing,
| both from a bee and a people perspective. Density is a lot more
| nice if greenery is nearby. Doesn't really matter if it's a park
| or an allotment or a library with a wide area. Just plenty of
| "something" with a large "big something" every so often.
|
| In most cities I have experience with, high quality outdoor space
| is largely reserved for the parts of town populated by people
| living in detached, one-family dwellings. The more dense parts of
| town are clustered next to noisy streets or with pollution. Not
| much greenspace. The cities that have gotten it more right than
| wrong are usually in western Europe and parts of Asia.
|
| > Christian Schmid-Egger, who coordinates Berlin's wildflower
| meadows on behalf of the German Wildlife Foundation, said any
| conservation effort would ultimate require broader changes in
| agricultural practices: "If we are going to save the bees, we
| won't be doing it in cities."
|
| He's not wrong, but he's also not fully right either. One of the
| biggest damages we've done to our biome is to pave so much of it,
| largely to make space for automobiles. Animals and insects need
| places to thrive all over and setting aside more space among our
| population for both people _and_ insects makes for a better
| environment.
| rapnie wrote:
| I do some "guerilla seeding" now and then where I live,
| scattering seeds in abandoned city spots that are waiting for
| new housing to be build (which can take years). It is so
| beautiful what flowers emerge, and when I see how both
| residents and tourists enjoy them, taking pictures and such, I
| felt it should be common practice to sow such spaces with
| flowers. Suggested it to our municipality, but after a "Maybe,
| we'll consider it" nothing happened. It is such low effort, low
| cost though.. it has a good ROI in terms of well-being for bees
| and humans alike :)
| Sharlin wrote:
| In my city, a grassroots organization that started as a bunch
| of "guerrilla gardeners" now has their urban meadow projects
| sanctioned by the city, more meadows are being created, and
| they do paid consulting for the city as well on the topic of
| biodiversity and various restoration projects. Very nice.
| Rochus wrote:
| That's a good approach; I looked around what to sow or plant;
| here is a site with useful information:
| http://hummelgarten.ch/dokumente/ (mostly German, but there
| are also a few English documents).
| [deleted]
| TaylorAlexander wrote:
| I've been doing something similar. Collecting native seeds
| from plants that grow well here after they bloom, and
| distributing them to barren spots that need more growth and
| color. I just started but hopefully next year there will be
| more Echium and Lupine around here.
| distances wrote:
| Small warning for Europeans: here Lupine is a introduced
| species that displaces endemic plants. It probably should
| be removed if it's growing in your lands.
| Rochus wrote:
| Don't remove it; better a few foreign lupines than no
| more bumble or solitary bees.
| developer93 wrote:
| *replace it with native species
| Rochus wrote:
| Well, what is native? The Lupinus polyphyllus is the most
| common lupine species in Central Europe and has been
| present here for more than a hundred years. It is also
| one of the better bumblebee plants. When farmers mow the
| meadows (cutting down most of the native bumblebee
| plants) the bumblebees can't find anything there and are
| grateful for any garden.
| developer93 wrote:
| I believe it's also poisonous
| _Microft wrote:
| I know that nature conservation authorities had to do
| that here in Germany when these plants spread from
| people's gardens into natural reserves. Please use local
| species instead of invasive ones.
| Mediterraneo10 wrote:
| In highly litigious cultures like the USA, wouldn't a city be
| wary of attracting lawsuits from people with bee-sting
| allergies for putting them at supposed risk?
| dan-robertson wrote:
| The US may be litigious but judges and lawyers aren't stupid.
| The key issue is that it would generally be pretty hard to
| find someone sufficiently culpable.
|
| Many cities plant lots of male dioecious trees (ie some
| individuals of the species only have staminate ("male")
| flowers and others individuals only have pistillate
| ("female") flowers, the city plants only the trees that
| produce staminate flowers) which produce twice as much pollen
| as they would if trees were selected more randomly. This is
| because they drop less litter. But it is bad for people with
| allergies. I don't think any such people have had success
| suing their cities for this practice.
| nullc wrote:
| > which produce twice as much pollen as they would if trees
| were selected more randomly.
|
| My understanding is that it's even worse than twice,
| because the female flowers of some species actually filter
| the pollen out of the air.
| dan-robertson wrote:
| It sounds like the "high quality outdoor space" you are
| referring to is something to be found in typical North American
| suburbia, but I would argue that this is typically a bleak
| crabgrass hell and not much higher quality or more alive than
| the road/parking-lot hell that surrounds it. But maybe you are
| instead imagining streets lined with elm trees (well elm was
| traditional but most died of Dutch elm disease--other species
| are used now).
|
| Occasionally one may find an undeveloped lot which has more
| native species growing there, but perhaps we just disagree on
| what a high-quality outdoor space is, and you have something
| much more human-focused than natural in mind. I would argue
| that these _do_ exist in the dense parts of big American cities
| (think Central Park in New York, which has a lot of space but
| also serves a dense population and so can afford more
| gardeners, flower beds, and varied features in general; New
| York also manages to sustain two botanical gardens which have
| reasonable examples of natural habitat too.) Though I would
| imagine the typical US city with a hollowed-out downtown
| mightn't have good parks or shared spaces.
| ben_w wrote:
| As a non-American, American cities haven't impressed me _at
| all_.
|
| However, you may find it interesting to explore the rest of
| the world via Google Street View: I grew up in the South
| Downs of the UK, did my degree in Aberystwyth, spent several
| years in Cambridge and roughly one each in Plymouth and
| Sheffield, and now live in Berlin. These all have a lot of
| greenery within and on their doorsteps, the worst among them
| (Sheffield and Plymouth) being roughly similar to my memories
| of Manhattan.
|
| Street View images of Spain, Greece, and Cyprus remind me a
| lot of rural California (when actually visiting, Spain and
| Greece felt accurate, Cyprus felt like the UK). Most of
| England, Wales, and North-West France reminds me of New
| England. The only places I've been to that were as bleak as
| Nevada/Salt Lake were literally beaches, and even there the
| bleakness didn't stretch to the horizon.
|
| Rhine Valley has some colossal eyesores, but even then you
| get to fantastic countryside in a fairly short cycle ride.
| Everywhere in Switzerland, even the cities, is basically a
| paradise on par with Yosemite, with the occasional mistake
| present (Zurich motorway); and, with the caveat that I was 9
| and this was multiple decades ago now, I have lots of green
| memories from when I visited Singapore, Bangkok, Adelaide,
| Sydney, Canberra, and Cairns.
|
| (Nairobi had a lot of green in a lot of places, but I really
| did not feel like I grokked any of the cities' underlying
| patterns in the week I was there, so I can't say if greenery
| implied rich places or poor places).
| techsupporter wrote:
| My view of a high-quality outdoor space is one where humans
| can be without the need to pay, with the ability to sit, and
| some space for play or leisure. We should also plan for pets
| being present because no matter how many signs you put asking
| people to not bring their dogs, cats, turtles, or ferrets,
| people will bring them. So let's not assume otherwise. A
| water fountain would be great, a public restroom (like a
| Portland Loo) even moreso in larger areas.
|
| This same space should also have as much of its volume as
| possible given over to natural surfaces. Grasses and hardy
| flowers, in particular. We don't need a rose garden. Most
| plant species native to an area look quite nice if not mowed
| down or stunted with pesticides.
|
| We should encourage property owners to give over some of the
| massive amounts of space currently used for automobile
| operation and storage to these public spaces. Eliminate
| parking minimums so that grocery and other big box stores in
| urban areas are able to rip up the artificial paving and
| return that space to natural use, for example. Make more
| planter box seating in movement rights-of-way. Unused parcels
| owned by governments should not be fenced off but have some
| furniture plopped down and an "everyone welcome" sign placed
| here.
|
| I also want people and their cities to think about more than
| just downtown. Comparatively few people live in "actual"
| downtowns. We need to deal with that, too, so that downtowns
| are not just clusters of tall office buildings that empty out
| at the end of a workday. Nothing says that Downtown cannot be
| a vibrant neighborhood of its own, arguably even easier than
| trying to kickstart other neighborhoods. But just saying
| "putting green space in downtown is difficult" misses the
| many, many other areas of most cities and towns.
|
| (I'm sure someone will come along and say "but you can't
| possibly do this because _the homeless_ " so yes, this does
| mean we are addressing environmental concerns at the same
| time we are addressing human concerns.)
| germinalphrase wrote:
| Minneapolis gave small grants to homeowners for this purpose. The
| program was well publicized before it began and all slots filled
| immediately.
|
| I know an entomology researcher that is studying the impact on
| native pollinators and (unofficially) they are feeling very
| bullish about the whole thing.
| Tomte wrote:
| Many towns now let neighbours care about "Baumscheiben"
| (https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baumscheibe) along their streets.
| In my town there are many that have been "adopted", and they are
| sometimes spectacularly beautiful.
|
| There are a few rules: the tree and its roots must not be
| damaged, you must not plant things that grow too tall, because it
| would create dangers in traffic.
|
| City dwellers get to garden a little bit, the town saves on
| upkeep.
|
| And today I'm in Muenster and I saw a nice addition to that: the
| town placed several large water containers along the sidewalk, so
| the people don't have to carry water from their homes.
| BuyMyBitcoins wrote:
| I live in Texas and I saw a monarch butterfly for the first time
| a few weeks ago. I hope more people let wildflowers grow - as the
| people who are currently doing so seem to be helping the biome
| recover.
| vhodges wrote:
| For readers in the Lower Mainland (of BC):
|
| https://www.westcoastseeds.com/products/bee-turf and/or
| https://www.westcoastseeds.com/products/alternative-lawn-mix
| dan-robertson wrote:
| The biggest cause of these declining populations seems, to me, to
| be intensive agriculture which leads to both loss of habitat and
| various toxic chemicals (pesticides but also fertilisers and huge
| quantities of slurry). Another cause may be pollution but it
| seems to me that we've had pollution for longer. In the U.K. this
| intensive agriculture was started in the war as an effort to
| produce more food locally. It meant less land was left fallow and
| land which had been too poor quality to be viable was farmed
| (with low yields and lots of artificial inputs.) It also means
| that any agricultural runoff is worse for the environment it runs
| into (even fertilisers may cause algal blooms in rivers which can
| then remove the oxygen from the water.) Because farms have to
| stay competitive, there isn't much choice but to continue these
| intensive practices. To some extent, switching to certified
| organic practices allows farms to stop such practices.
|
| It's not so obvious what the solution is. There are a lot of
| people to feed and reducing the productivity of the land in a
| rich country puts pressure on land in other countries. One
| suggested solution is people changing to more land-efficient
| diets with less meat, but I don't really see this happening much.
| pfdietz wrote:
| How do fertilizers kill insects?
| dan-robertson wrote:
| Well insecticides and habitat loss kill insects. Intensive
| farming involves insecticides and habitat loss. And
| fertilisers in runoff may damage ecosystems causing further
| loss of habitat.
| Rochus wrote:
| This is very important and worrisome. People usually know only
| the honeybees. But, for example, bumblebees are at least as
| important in pollination (even more diligent than honeybees
| because they fly even in bad and cold weather).
|
| But this year is extreme; here in Switzerland I hardly see
| bumblebees anymore, no idea why. I am far from being the only one
| who has noticed this. Here, for example, a detailed blog (in
| German), where an incredible planting in contrast to previous
| years is hardly visited by bumblebees:
| http://www.hummelgarten.ch.
| snovv_crash wrote:
| Maybe it was due to the very cold winter?
| Rochus wrote:
| Well, I remember much harsher winters twenty years ago which
| apparently was no issue for the bees. And until some weeks
| ago I actually saw many bumblebee queens on the flowers, but
| then by end of May the number suddenly decreased sharply.
| Must be another reason.
| qayxc wrote:
| I found many dead bumblebees this year and many of them
| were infected with mites.
|
| It seems as if varroa mites have carried viruses from
| infected honey bees to wild bees and are killing a lot
| them.
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