Green, but plant-free and therefore easy to care for.

This is how some homeowners imagine their front yard, as Michael Theune knows from his experience as a gardener and landscaper.

The concrete surface painted green looks at least as dreary as the rocky desert right at the beginning of the first garden festival.

It is being organized by the Förderverein Gartenschau Bad Schwalbach 2022, which emerged from the Förderverein zur Landesgartenschau 2018 and will soon be renamed: Förderverein Gartenstadt Bad Schwalbach it will be called in the foreseeable future, and the name is both the program and the mission: the spa town into a green one to transform a garden city with flair.

Oliver Bock

Correspondent for the Rhein-Main-Zeitung for the Rheingau-Taunus district and for Wiesbaden.

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The association, which has around 250 members and which Theune has headed for a number of years, is the organizer of the first "garden festival" in the spa gardens.

Opposite the moor bathhouse, the entrance leads to a dozen themed gardens, all united by one motto: taking a stand against the disappearance of insects.

Theune and his comrades-in-arms want more greenery and more order, less rubbish and fewer “dirty corners” in the city.

Instead, the association wants to campaign for more beds and more art in public spaces.

"Many stones kill the bees," says Theune in one of the "gardens of horror," which are supposed to have a deterrent effect.

Insect decline irreversible

There is a positive example right next door: a garden with many plants that have been put together under the leitmotif of insect and animal food, supplemented by a water basin and a collection of dead wood.

A “Tiny Forest” will also be on display, which is an example of how the climate in the city can be positively influenced with small gardens of 25 square meters.

There is an “insect petting zoo” and an open-air nature classroom for the many school classes and daycare groups that have registered for guided tours.

Once the painted lady caterpillars have turned into butterflies, the small butterfly house will also be an attraction.

And after the end of the show on June 26th, the butterflies can be released with the blessing of the authorities.

Theune hopes that the garden show will show what a great loss the daily sealing of more than 100 soccer fields in Germany means.

The "insect graveyard" gives a somber view, where grave crosses for two dozen endangered insect species have been placed under a tree full of spray canisters.

In allotment gardens alone, 5,400 tons of pesticides are used every year, says Theune.

There is no reason for optimism for the insect world: the decline in insects is "irreversible".

It would be a stroke of luck if the status quo could be maintained.

But the efforts to use a lot of arable land for food cultivation in the wake of the Ukraine war are threatening for the insects.

The garden festival “Insektenschwund” in the Kurpark Bad Schwalbach is open daily from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. until June 26th.

Admission for visitors aged 17 and over costs eight euros.