Energy crisis hits nurseries
Created: 09/26/2022, 2:00 p.m
Outrageously expensive flowers: Christian Palme's nursery in Gmund has 2,000 square meters of greenhouse space.
Because Palme heats with gas, the coming winter will present him with serious problems.
© Thomas Plettenberg
The energy crisis is hitting the garden centers in the district with full force: the heating costs for their greenhouses are increasing immeasurably.
Companies are now hoping for a price cap based on the model in other European countries.
District –
electricity costs at record levels, an astronomical gas price: numerous companies are suffering from the horrendous energy costs.
Garden centers are particularly affected with their energy-intensive greenhouses.
Gmund
When Christian Palme, head of the nursery of the same name in Gmund, talks about the current situation, he uses strong language.
Who cares?
Palme heats around 2,000 of its 3,000 square meters with gas.
Only the planting areas under foil are heated with oil.
Just two years ago, Palme invested 50,000 euros in new gas boilers.
"At the time, that was considered an economical and environmentally friendly alternative to oil heating," says Palme bitterly.
"Now I'm having one of the boilers converted to oil for a lot of money."
Palme has no other choice: His heating costs have risen from 20,000 euros a year earlier to 120,000 euros a year now.
The monthly payment of 1,700 euros became 11,000 euros.
"It's going in a direction that we can no longer calculate," he says.
Mainly because other products have also become more expensive.
Plastic pots: 40 percent more.
Substrate: 20 percent more expensive.
"We have to transfer that to our goods," says Palme.
Each of his approximately 80,000 plants would have to be around two euros more expensive in order to earn the higher costs.
"And then the question is whether the customers will go along with it, who also have to save."
Price of roses tripled
Raising prices is just one of the measures that Palme is taking in view of the energy crisis.
Another is that he shuts down his operations completely in January and winter: "Then I'll at least save on personnel costs for this period," he says.
He accepts that the business will then go haywire on Valentine's Day: "The price of roses has doubled or tripled.
Nobody would buy a rose for ten euros anyway, so I'll leave it alone."
Palme has also considered letting its entire production rest for a year.
"But we still have to heat, because otherwise pipes, pumps and boilers will freeze and break down," he says.
The prospects for the coming months are bleak: "I have to see where I can get the financial means to get through this winter."
wooden churches
"The energy crisis hits all companies hard, whether it's a bakery or a garden center," says Stephanie Garbe.
She has been running Garbe's Gartenhof in Holzkirchen since 1995 - it wasn't that difficult even during the Corona pandemic: "People gardened a lot there," says Garbe.
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Garbe has two greenhouses, one heated to five degrees, the other to 15 degrees.
At least so far: "This winter we will no longer afford 15 degrees and instead reduce our stock of heat-loving plants." The poinsettias get a window seat in the festival building, which is easier to heat than a greenhouse.
Garbe will also shorten its opening hours from October to reduce electricity and heating costs.
planning impossible
It's not just the hefty energy prices that are causing her problems.
"The problem is also that we don't have a calculation factor." For example, her geranium supplier now needs to know how many geraniums she will buy from him in the spring, since the young plants have to be planted now.
At the same time, however, he could not tell her how much the geraniums cost to buy, since heating costs could continue to rise.
Against the background of this unpredictability, Garbe hopes for a price cap.
"Something has to happen very quickly so that medium-sized companies can calculate again," she says.
It would be helpful, for example, to guarantee a fixed price for a basic gas requirement of around 70 percent and to make the remaining 30 percent of consumption variable.
Hausham
Wilhelm Jähne also says: “A price cap on energy costs would be a good thing.
The French do it, the Spaniards and the Portuguese.
I don't know why it's so difficult for us!" The owner of the Jähne nursery in Hausham got off with a black eye: He heats his 3,000 square meter greenhouse with oil.
Although he recently paid 1.39 euros per liter, almost twice as much as last year, he is not as badly affected as gas customers.
Jähne benefits from the fact that it has a capacity of 20,000 liters: "This way I can buy in advance and therefore take advantage of oil price fluctuations." In addition, he reduced his energy consumption by 50 percent a few years ago by installing so-called energy screens in all his greenhouses let.
These fully automatic umbrellas open depending on the weather and then form an insulating skin.
The owner of the long-established family business has already thought about a wood chip heating system.
"It works in an apartment building, but unfortunately not in greenhouses because it can't break the spikes."
Jähne knows of nurseries in Holland that completely shut down their operations over the winter.
"But that doesn't work for us because the snow dents the roof of the greenhouses if I don't heat."
BY BETTINA STUHLWEISSENBURG
