For Dany, “wild bees & co. — bal­c­o­ny gar­dening” has deve­lo­ped into a gre­at hob­by. On two south-facing bal­co­nies in the south-west of Ber­lin (12 m² and 5 m²), she has been crea­ting new wild bee habi­tats and the neces­sa­ry wild bee infra­struc­tu­re sin­ce 2017. In addi­ti­on to pro­vi­ding as diver­se and con­ti­nuous a food sup­p­ly as pos­si­ble from Febru­ary to Octo­ber, she has inte­gra­ted water points, dead wood, a sand­a­ri­um, clay pot, bramble stalks, etc. and equip­ped it with many deco­ra­ti­ve cera­mic pie­ces. The bal­c­o­ny is her second living room, ser­ving as a place to relax and a source of food and shel­ter for insects.

Con­tents:

Dany intro­du­ces with pho­tos The deve­lo­p­ment of her beau­tiful, diver­se bal­co­nies with over 220 insect-fri­end­ly, pre­do­mi­nant­ly nati­ve plants. She talks about the uncon­ven­tio­nal approach, no win­ter pro­tec­tion, sub­stra­te mix­tures and spa­ring fer­ti­liza­ti­on. It’s gre­at to see their enthu­si­asm for how many insects and litt­le ani­mals have appeared on the bal­co­nies over the years along­side the wild bees, wasps, flies, hover­flies etc.. Many are inspi­red by their expe­ri­en­ces with the wate­ring methods they have tes­ted, such as Drip irri­ga­ti­on, micro drip, solar, elec­tri­ci­ty, pres­su­re reduc­tion, boxes/buckets with water reser­voir, clay cones, ollas …etc., becau­se their bal­co­nies have no out­side water con­nec­tion.