1. General information
Location and description of the intervention
City or FUA
Munich
Region
Europe
Native title of the NBS intervention
o’pflanzt is!: Dein Gemeinschaftsgarten
Short description of the intervention
O'pflanzt is! is a community garden in the inner part of Munich. It was founded in summer 2011 by Vanessa Blind. Her vision was to create an urban, socio-ecological community garden - a place of planting, sowing and harvesting, a place for meeting and learning, a piece of nature in the city, a creative wilderness. The garden is a real community garden, as there are no individual beds, and decisions are made collectively. Sustainable production is one of the main goals of the project, which is why planting is done organically without synthetic fertilizer and only wood and recycled materials are used. (Reference 2) In 2018, the area of the garden had to be returned to its owners. The leaders of the garden, however, managed to find a new plot within a year and a half. (Reference 13)
Address

Bezirksteil Oberwiesenfeld, Stadtbezirk 09 Neuhausen-Nymphenburg
80809 München
Germany

Total area
700.00m²
NBS area
700.00m²
Type of area before implementation of the NBS
Timeline of intervention
Start date of the intervention (planning process)
unknown
Start date of intervention (implementation process)
2011
End date of the intervention
2012
Present stage of the intervention
Goals of the intervention
- creating an urban social-ecological community garden for planting, harvesting, meeting, and learning (Reference 2);
- creating an island of biodiversity, with special attention to bees;
- promoting active participation in food production;
- mobilizing against standardized food production;
- promoting genetically diverse regionally grown seasonal crops for climate change adaptation (Reference 4);
- conducting public dialogues about the symbiosis of urbanity and nature and about the practical ways of preserving nature;
- promoting cooperation and mutual recognition between people with different social and cultural background, including young and old people, disabled people and migrants;
- with the help of guided and individual gardening support psycho-social well-being outside the world of consumerism;
- promoting publicly accessible art and culture through exhibitions and performances and cultural projects in the garden ;
- exchange of goods and raw materials to regional currencies (Reference 2-6).

Quantitative targets
- realization of urban gardening on a 3300 square meter large area with 30 raised beds and other planters (Reference 5)
Monitoring indicators defined
area and number of raised beds
Climate change adaptation: What were the goals of the NBS?
Climate change adaptation: What activities are implemented to realize the conservation goals and targets?
Habitats and biodiversity conservation: What types of conservation goals are / were defined for the NBS intervention?
Implementation activities
- renting an unoccupied site from the local government;
- establishing a non-governmental association providing a legal framework for urban gardening (Reference 2);
- realization of urban gardening on a 3300 square meter area with 30 raised beds;
- offering workshops for education;
- setting up a compost toilet, a greenhouse tent, an outdoor kitchen and 3 compost heaps and beehives in the site;
- organizing events in the garden (Reference 5);
- in 2014, beehives were established (Reference 2);
NBS domain and interventions
Ecological domain(s) where the NBS intervention(s) is/are implemented
Community gardens and allotments
Community gardens
Please specify the number of plots or allotment gardens
30
Vegetation Type
Amenities offered by the NBS
Services
Expected ecosystem services delivered
Provisioning services
Food for human consumption (crops, vegetables)
Raw materials
Regulating services
Pollination
Habitat and supporting services
Habitats for species
Maintenance of genetic diversity
Cultural services
Intellectual interactions (scientific and / or educational)
Physical and experiential interactions with plants and animals
Social and community interactions
Scale
Spatial scale
Micro-scale: District/neighbourhood level
Beneficiaries
Governance
Governance arrangements
Non-government actors
Non-governmental organisation (NGO) / Civil society / Churches
Please specify the roles of the specific government and non-government actor groups involved in the initiative
Opflanzt-is! was founded in summer 2011 by Vanessa Blind. She leased an unoccupied area on the Emma-Street from the State Bavaria. (Until 2018, when the project had to move) To provide a legal framework for the project, the non-profit association o'pflanzt is! E.V. was registered. (Reference 2).
Land owners
Key actors - Other stakeholders involved (besides initiating actors)
Non-government organisation/civil society
Citizens or community group
Land owners
Policy drivers
NBS intervention implemented in response to an Regional Directive/Strategy
Unknown
NBS intervention implemented in response to a national regulations/strategy/plan
Unknown
NBS intervention implemented in response to a local regulation/strategy/plan
Unknown
Mandatory or voluntary intervention
Voluntary (spontaneous)
Please specify other type of voluntary intervention
The initiators were driven by their own value system when they started the intervention.
Enablers
Presence of specific city-level GI/NBS vision/strategy/plan - mentioned in connection to the project
Yes
Please specify
The establishment of urban community gardens are in accordance with the green strategy of Munich. The the "Perspective of Munich" prepared by the Department of City Planning and Building Regulations wrote in 1998: "Landscape and green spaces of the city have to be secured and developed. This refers not only to the conservation of the important public spaces and landscapes and their large-scale networking (...) but also to the small-scale networking and supply within the individual quarters, which are in many places need to be improved. Areas of restructuring, in particular in the inner city outskirts, often the last chance to reduce deficits" (cited in Reference 7).
Presence of specific city-level GI/NBS section/part in a more general plan - mentioned in connection to the project
Unknown
If there is a relevant strategy or plan, please specify the theme / type of the plan.
Presence of city network or regional partnerships focused on NBS - mentioned in connection to the project
Yes
Please specify
The O'Pfalnzt-is! is a member of Urbane Gärten München Netzwerk (Reference 8), the network of Stiftung Interkultur for intercultural gardens (Reference 9).
Presence of GI / NBS research project - mentioned in connection to the project
Yes
Please specify
Urban gardens and intercultural gardens are researched in Munich. For example in 2009, a proponent of urban gardening wrote a detailed report about the situation of the time including the types of urban gardens of Munich (Reference 7).
Subsidies/investment for GI / NBS in the city - mentioned in connection to the project
Yes
Please specify
The project got 5000 EUR fund from Sparda Bank at the very beginning, The organization got 4000 EUR annual budget from the Department of Health and Environment (Reference 8).
Co-finance for NBS
Yes
Co-financing governance arrangements
Unknown
Was this co-governance arrangement already in place, or was it set up specifically for this NBS?
Financing
What is/was the Cost/Budget (EUR) of the NBS or green infrastructure elements?
Unknown
What are the total amount of expected annual maintenance costs?
Unknown
What is the expected annual maintenance costs of the NBS or GI elements?
Unknown
Please specify cost savings
Unknown
Please specify total cost (EUR)
The total cost is unknown. The project got 5000 EUR fund from Sparda Bank at the very beginning, The organization get 4000 EUR annual budget from the Department of Health and Environment. With the private and corporate donations the organization could implement its compost toilet (Reference 8). The garden is also subsidised by the annual membership fees paid by it's members (Reference 6) and crowdfunding.
Non-financial contribution
Yes
Type of non-financial contribution
Who provided the non-financial contribution?
Which of the involved actors was motivated by this model?
Type of innovation
Please specify social innovation
- community garden that is open to everyone and which has no private parts
- exchange of goods and raw materials to regional currencies (Reference 10)
Novelty level of the innovation
Please specify novelty level of the innovation
unknown
Replicability/Transferability
Please specify Replicability/Transferability
unknown
Impacts, benefits
Description of environmental benefits
With its emphasis on sustainability, the project has cultivated mostly local species. (Reference 4) With the beekeeping project, the locals participating in the initiative have increased the protection of bees and the support of pollination. (Reference 2) In 2015, the bee-protection project of the organization was one of the winners of the nationwide competition of WWF Deutschland Wildes Deutschland for local nature conservation and became a part of its promotion campaign (Reference 12).
Please specify other socio-cultural impact
Aesthetic appreciation
Description of economic benefits
The project brought urban agricultural production to Munich, which was one of the last cities in Germany to establish community gardens. (Reference 12)
Description of social and cultural benefits
The project improved the aesthetic appreciation of the area. In the fall of 2013, the project was recognized as one of ten projects in the competition for the “Most Beautiful Street in Germany”, proclaimed by the “Network Neighbourhood”. (Reference 2) Since the community garden moved, it now puts an even larger emphasis on education, as the new garden is located within the site of a school, the Montessori-Schule. The focus is on interactive learning and sustainability education. (Reference 14) The garden brings together children, adolescents, the elderly, disabled people and migrants with its many opportunities, community programmes and flexible price. (Reference 6) The project brings sustainable practices, inclusive garden management and healthy food closer to citizens. (Reference 2, 4, 6)


Type of reported impacts
Indicators
Unknown
Analysis of specific impact categories
Job creation: The NBS created ...
Environmental justice: The implementation of the NBS project resulted in ...
Negative impacts: Did the project cause any problems or concerns?
No information was found regarding negative impacts of the project
COVID-19 pandemic
During the months of April and May, the usual community events held in the garden were cancelled. (Reference 1) It is unknown (in July 2020) whether there was any interruption in the maintenance of the garden.
Methods of impact monitoring
Process of recording NBS impacts
Methods used to evaluate the impacts of NBS
Evidence for use of assessment
Presence of an assessment, evaluation and/or monitoring process
Unknown
Presence of indicators used in reporting
No evidence in public records
Presence of monitoring/evaluation reports
No evidence in public records
Availability of a web-based monitoring tool
No evidence in public records
Impact assessment mechanism
Name of any specific impact assessment tools
unknown
Use of GIS in mapping impacts
No evidence in public records
Citizen involvement
Citizens involvement in assessment/evaluation
Unknown
Citizens involvement in the analysis of the assessment/evaluation
Unknown
Follow-up to the evaluation / assessment
Unknown
References
List of references
1. O-Pflanzt-is.de. (2017). The official website of the community garden. [online]. Available at: http://o-pflanzt-is.de/. [Accessed: 28 Jul. 2020].
2. O-Pflanzt-is.de. (2017). Historie. [online]. Available at: http://o-pflanzt-is.de/der-garten/die-geschichte/. [Accessed: 28 Jul. 2020].
3. O-Pflanzt-is.de. (2017). Die Vision. [online]. Available at: http://o-pflanzt-is.de/die-vision/. [Accessed: 28 Jul. 2020].
4. O-Pflanzt-is.de. (2017). Warum Gärtern?. [online]. Available at: http://o-pflanzt-is.de/die-vision/urbanes-gaertnern/. [Accessed: 28 Jul. 2020].
5. O-Pflanzt-is.de. (2017). Gärtern ist politisch. [online]. Available at: http://o-pflanzt-is.de/die-vision/gaertnern-ist-politisch/. [Accessed: 28 Jul. 2020].
6. O-Pflanzt-is.de. (2017). Satzung. [online]. Available at: http://o-pflanzt-is.de/mitmachen/der-verein/satzung/. [Accessed: 28 Jul. 2020].
7. Haide, E. (2009). Urbane partizipative Gartenaktivitäten in München 2009. [online] https://anstiftung.de/jdownloads/forschungsarbeiten_urbane_gaerten/studie_urb_lw.pdf. [Accessed: 28 Jul. 2020].
8. Urbane-gaerten-muenchen.de. (2017) O'Pflanzt is! [online] Available at: http://urbane-gaerten-muenchen.de/gaerten/gemeinschaftsgaerten/opflanzt-is/ [Accessed: 28 Jul. 2020].
9. O-Pflanzt-is.de. (2017). Wir sind drin. [online]. Available at: http://o-pflanzt-is.de/wir-sind-drin/. [Accessed: 28 Jul. 2020].
10. Riedel, K. (2014) Urban Gardening in München: O' pflanzt is!. Süddeutsche Zeitung [online] Available at: http://www.sueddeutsche.de/muenchen/urban-gardening-in-muenchen-o-pflanzt-is-1.1882637. [Accessed: 28 Jul. 2020]
11. Süddeutsche.de. (2017) Picture of the community garden. [image] Available at: http://www.sueddeutsche.de/muenchen/urban-gardening-in-muenchen-o-pflanzt-is-1.1882637. [Accessed: 28 Jul. 2020]
12. O-Pflanzt-is.de. (2017). Die Bienen: Stadtbiene 2.0. [online]. Available at: http://o-pflanzt-is.de/die-bienen/stadtbiene-2-0/. [Accessed: 28 Jul. 2020].
13. O-pflanzt-is.de. (2019) Gemeinschaftsgarten erblüht neu im Olympiapark. [online] Available at: https://o-pflanzt-is.de/gemeinschaftsgarten-erblueht-neu-im-olympiapark/ [Accessed: 28 Jul. 2020]
14. Betterplace.org (2020). O'pflantzt is! [online] Available at: https://www.betterplace.org/de/projects/9968-o-pflanzt-is [Accessed: 28 Jul. 2020]
Comments and notes
Public Images
Image
Community garden: o’pflanzt is!
Community garden: o’pflanzt is!
Source: Ref. 11