Last year, the Lower Saxony Home Ownership Association launched the "Nature in the Garden" project. This initiative pursues the goal of using as many gardens of private owners as possible as biotopes to support and develop biodiversity in Germany. Likewise, the gardens of owners participating in the initiative are to be networked in the long term so that animals have the opportunity to move from biotope to biotope.
A total of 50 gardens were included in the "Nature in the Garden" program. These were first examined, classified and recorded on a map according to various aspects, such as the location and size of the garden, the climatic conditions, the existing planting or the nature of the soil. Depending on the characteristics of the gardens, the initiators of the campaign have developed different measures that the garden owners should implement. In advance, the garden owners have committed themselves to implementing at least three of the five specified measures.
The measures include, for example, the installation of bird nesting aids and insect nesting aids for wild bees. The planting of bird-nourishing shrubs, which insects can use as a food source during flowering, and the creation of flower meadows on previous lawns are also among the precautions developed. The "Nature in the Garden" project is to be extended to the whole of Germany in the long term. Participating gardens will receive a plaque to encourage owners of neighboring gardens to take part. By networking and creating settlement biotopes, garden owners make a sustainable contribution to environmental protection, for example by planting wild hedges in their gardens, creating wetland biotopes or renaturalizing existing streams.
Source: Verband Wohneigentum e. V.
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