Here you are private and yet outside: Gardens have taken on a whole new meaning in the Corona crisis. Even those who "only" have a balcony can count themselves lucky. Because a piece of nature can also be enjoyed there.
Berlin (dpa) - Whether planted balcony or garden: In the Corona period, the more or less large piece of green took on a whole new meaning for many people. "Suddenly everyone wants to garden. Gardening is new cooking," says Berlin garden blogger Carolin Engwert.
"Before Corona, for example, my blog had around 30,000 readers a month, now it's 120,000 readers," she says, while she is harvesting lettuce in her allotment garden in Berlin. On her blog, Engwert gives tips for gardening in the allotment or on the balcony.
Garden as a new status symbol
"If you have a garden, it is probably a little easier to live with the restrictions," says garden historian Anke Schmitz from Offenbach in Hesse. She notes the special meaning of the gardens in the Corona period in her interactive blog "Gardensinthetimesofcorona.com" (Gardens in the times of Corona). "The blog is a virtual garden monument," says Schmitz, who is still looking for further reports.
About 30 garden enthusiasts have already written down their experiences here: "In this Corona spring, we actually only really got to know our garden", say Conny and Malte from Eggstedt. Both work in the home office and now spend significantly more time with the three children in the garden, which the family has had for two years. Andreas from Bochum reports that during the Corona period, the shared garden that he also managed became a "place to escape from the domestic cheese bell" for neighbors.
For the garden therapist Andreas Niepel from Hattingen in North Rhine-Westphalia, his arbor and the 350 square meter garden are "something like the new status symbol". "Everyone everywhere suddenly envies me for it. It is as if owning an allotment garden had become the Insel-Sylt sticker of the 1920s," said Niepel.
Retreat to nature
"We humans are simply natural beings with an urge to go outside," emphasizes the therapist, who works in neurological rehabilitation. Even a minimal deprivation of nature, such as now in the Corona period, is difficult to endure for many people. "Studies in national parks in the USA have also shown that, especially after a catastrophe such as 9/11, people rush not into the churches but into nature. Even in the Corona crisis, people are pushing into the parks and gardens," he said Niepel.
"The garden is a private, protected space and yet you are also part of public life, for example you can talk to your neighbors about the fence. It is therefore much more permeable than a house or an apartment," says blogger Schmitz. Many people would have appreciated these advantages during the lockdown period.
"At the moment, a garden is the best place to be. There is no greater happiness at the moment," said the managing director of the Federal Association of German Garden Friends, Stefan Grundei, at the beginning of the Corona crisis. A statement that is unlikely to have lost its topicality on the day of the garden on June 14.
Vacation in your own garden
Not only planting, sowing and weeding are experiencing a new boom. Paddling pools, trampolines and play towers are also finding their way into the gardens. "Many families have set themselves up for a vacation in their own garden or on their balcony. To ensure that the best time of the year is an experience, people stock up on outdoor play equipment," reports Steffen Kahnt, Managing Director of the Federal Association of Toy Retailers .
"For me, the garden was a good opportunity to just be alone and come down," says the Berlin blogger Engwert. Like so many other families, she and her husband had to do home office, childcare and homeschooling with two children for weeks.
The designer has been leasing her garden since 2015. "In the past, you had to justify yourself for an allotment," she says. Today is different. She wrote the book "Adventure Garden" about her first year in the allotment garden. Allotment gardens have been in particular demand nationwide since the beginning of the Corona crisis, according to the Federal Association of Allotment Gardeners. There is at least a doubling of demand compared to the previous year. In Berlin, Hamburg or Munich, demand has even quadrupled in some cases.
Balcony as a garden replacement?
If you "only" have a balcony, you can also grow a lot there. "The space is limited, but whether potatoes, spinach, radishes - almost everything is possible, just no walnut tree," says the Berlin balcony gardener, blogger and author Birgit Schattling ("bio-balkon.de"). "People have more time and just want to grow their own fruit, vegetables and herbs," says Schattling.
This spring, too, she had registered a much stronger interest in gardening. "There is more activity than ever in my Facebook group for the Bio-Balcony Congress," said Schattling. Her online congress on balcony gardening also set a new record this year with 13,000 participants.
Literature:
Adventure Garden: My first year in the allotment (German) Paperback - February 13, 2020, 160 pages, Franckh Kosmos Verlag; ISBN-10: 3440164128, 20 euros
Blog Capital Garden
Blog Gardens in Corona times
Blog for balcony gardening
Federal Association of Toy Retailers
Federal Association of German Garden Friends