Chemnitz flowering meadows: preparatory work underway, sowing begins
Since 2020, the flowering meadows in Chemnitz have been setting colourful accents at selected locations. What began as part of the bid to become European Capital of Culture 2025 is now being continued. As announced last autumn, the previous year's flowering strips have now been prepared for sowing.
This year, the "Regional flower strips" project is being organised by the Parks Department. A young team of landscape gardeners and trainees from the Parks Department have taken on this task. The project builds on years of preparation by Saatgutgarten e.V. and is supported by the organisation. The focus here is on the development of near-natural, sustainable and permanent insect meadows. In order to create optimal germination conditions for the seeds, the soil was prepared on around 3,000 square metres of municipal green space and any remaining grass and weeds were removed.
The seeds will be sown in the next few days. Together with the experienced staff of the Chemnitz Seed Garden, Nachhall e.V., regional seed mixtures of varying heights will be sown. For example, the low, colourful mixture contains annual and perennial insect-friendly plants, such as the endangered species field larkspur (strong blue), cornflower, yellow seeded rampion and red corn poppy. The advantage of this nectar-rich mixture, which is enjoyed by native wildlife from butterflies to hedgehogs, is the relatively low water requirement. Of course, the visual effect of these areas is not comparable to the flowering areas described above. However, some of last year's areas will continue to be maintained as an experiment in order to assess the self-seeding and flowering results.
Flowering meadows are ecologically valuable, increase biodiversity and are beautiful to look at. However, the colourful meadows do not grow on their own. A great deal of commitment and expertise is required to keep the meadows flourishing. It is by no means sufficient to simply stop mowing the lawn. In the case of flowering meadows, a distinction must be made between near-natural insect meadows on the one hand and colourful flowering strips on the other.
As in the previous year, the project is being supported by the Chemnitz Economic Development Corporation (CWE) as part of the Capital of Culture 2025. In collaboration with 15 local stakeholders, the CWE has selected 20,000 square metres of additional land for the creation of flowering meadows in 2021. As in 2020 for the Capital of Culture application, the colourful, large-flowered mixtures of annual flowers will be used here and will once again provide a colourful eye-catcher in the cityscape. This special seed mixture can be purchased at the Tourist Information Centre.