Shirtless and in the shade, Denis trims the tree in front of his little red house. Several years ago he decided to moderate watering. “In my garden, I use wood chips and straw to cover the soil, so less water is needed. For the vegetable patch, I water at the base of the tomatoes and not all the time”explains this resident of La Wantzenau, north of Strasbourg, labeled three flowers in the Flower Village competition. But since Monday July 11, the Bas-Rhin prefecture has been calling for better regulate water use for private gardens and community green spaces. The department is placed on drought vigilance, before a heat wave that promises to be historic.
However, Denis does not intend to limit his watering a little further with this alert from the prefecture. He thinks have done their part of the joblike Laurent, a resident of La Wantzenau for eight generations. “I have just taken the Nationale, and when I see all the water lying around on the road to water the corn that we will not eat… The question arises among the biggest farmers”he says. “Especially when you see the evolution of the water table, it’s worrying.”
Mix the plants
For its part, the municipality of La Wantzenau has already begun two years ago to reduce water consumptionparticularly in the watering of green spaces. “There, you have upholstering roses, which require very little intervention”, describes Michèle Kannengieser, the mayor of La Wantzenau, in front of the various flowerbeds of the town hall. “We also have an example of a nice mix with a few petunias surrounded by much more resistant plants”details the chosen one. “Proof that you can do great things with little water!”
In two years, Michèle Kannengieser ensures that the quantities of water used to water the green spaces have been halved in the municipality, in an ecological concern. “We hardly have any more cuts, everything is planted in the ground”continues the mayor. “We also add a mulch accordingly which helps maintain the humidity for several days.” Now all that’s left to do is find the fourth missing flower of the label, hopes the chosen one.
Do not make “radical” choices
This is what Holtzheim, south-west of Strasbourg, which is one of the ten municipalities of Bas-Rhin, has achieved. best rated by the jury towns and villages in bloom. There too, the balance is fragile between the aesthetics of the beds and good watering management. “The national jury itself has a slogan today: geraniums per kilo, that’s not what we’re looking for. That’s good, neither are we!”launches Pia Imbs, the mayor of Holtzheim, who wants to reassure: “Of course there are still geraniums, but not only. We need plants that can withstand heat, regardless of watering.”
We have an almost identical visual rendering, but a different water management. – Michèle Kannengieser, Mayor of La Wantzenau
A watering that stays anyway unavoidablerecalls the President of the Eurometropolis. “We cannot decide, in a radical way, not to water a football field or flowers placed there to beautify the town”, believes the chosen one. “It would cost too much to rehabilitate. But these are debates that are open with the inhabitants, we are often questioned about the watering of these large areas.”
– Bastien Munch
In La Wantzenau, the green space teams have in any case already tips to marry floral decoration and respect for the environment. “It requires meticulous work”confirms Michèle Kannengieser. “That of finding the colors that we like in Alsace: red, white, yellow, blue… For this, we mixed, for example, geraniums with verbena, sometimes white sometimes red. We sometimes confuse the two plantations!”, she laughs. “Even if, when we get closer, we realize that the flower is different. It’s one of our tricks. We have an almost identical visual rendering, but a different water management.”