No mowing for more biodiversity
30.05.2025 – There should be more buzzing, humming, fluttering and hovering in Offenbach's urban area. That's why the green spaces team at Stadtwerke Offenbach's Stadtservice is leaving the grass standing on selected green spaces so that meadows can develop here as a habitat for blooming flowers and insects.
Mowing means that the flowers growing in the area no longer reach seed maturity. By not mowing, many local authorities want to counteract the dramatic decline in insects in recent years and provide them with a habitat. Flowering meadows not only look nicer than monotonous lawns, the insects living here attract birds and thus ensure more biodiversity.
Areas such as Mainzer Ring, Nordring, Wetterpark, Leonhardt-Eißnert-Park and the old cemetery have been selected as potential flowering meadows. "We are using special seeds to help create flowering meadows in previously monotonous areas," says Jasna Volk, Head of the Greenery Department at Stadtwerke Offenbach. "Citizens can recognize the intentionally unmown areas by the so-called acceptance strip: This is a wide strip at the edge of the green space that is still mowed."
On the one hand, this is to prevent the greenery that has been left alone from taking over sidewalks or roads, and on the other hand, passers-by should recognize that Stadtservice has been active here, but has not intentionally shorn the entire area.
Lots of work in the fall
"We only remove the tall growth in the fall, when almost all the flowers have faded," says Jasna Volk. "When we mow, the fruiting bodies with the seeds fall to the ground and provide new plants the following year." Incidentally, the flowering meadows project does not save the employees any work: the gentle mowing in the fall requires additional work in addition to the smaller mowing passes in the border area. The clippings have to be collected and disposed of by hand after drying.