In some areas, the colorful annuals have been replaced with pre-made carpets of living grass that need quite a bit of water and regular mowing.

It’s as regular as the seasons of the year. The Jerusalem Municipality sends its garden contractors to public squares and other spaces around town every three to five months or so to plant hundreds of colorful annual flowers in each space – only for them to dry out and be trampled to death. The bare spots regularly fill up with used toilet tissue, soft drink cans, and other garbage.

A few months later, when the spaces have been desolate for months but the sprinklers continue to function on the naked earth, the same gardeners move in and replace the annuals. This wasteful practice occurs everywhere – a symbol of municipal squandering of our taxes.

In some areas, the colorful annuals have been replaced with pre-made carpets of living grass that need quite a bit of water and regular mowing.

Instead, the contractors could be instructed to plant hardy, flowering biennial plants – such as geraniums, roses, sweet William, daisies, lupines, coleus with its multicolor leaves – that don’t have to be replaced, perhaps needing only occasional pruning. They produce less of a riot of color, but they save money and water and are still a beautiful sight.

Barren land at Eli Wiesel Plaza

Residents of Yefe Nof/Beit Hakerem regularly lament over the large barren space around Eli Wiesel Plaza – in memory of the Nobel Peace Prize laureate and Holocaust survivor – adjacent to the Yefe Nof light rail station, which regularly has only a large marble disc with Wiesel’s name on it, but for months has not been decorated by single perennials or even annual plants and is often strewn with paper and other litter.

A municipal gardener who cannot be named agreed that biennials are much better and less expensive in the long run than annuals, but he explained that “Mayor [Moshe] Lion really likes colorful flowers.” When asked about the uprooting of trees and their replacement with concrete bricks in some places or leaving them empty instead of planting more trees for shade, he said in despair: “Getting new tree saplings from the municipality is like pulling teeth!” adding that the official decision to plant annuals was made by Adi Ben-Avi of the gardening department.

When asked for an interview with Adi Ben-Avi or someone else responsible in the gardening department, this reporter’s three separate requests were completely ignored, with no explanation given.

However, a complaint filed on the Jerusalem Municipality’s website did eventually produce an email – with false information – from a woman who deals with public queries. She wrote: “The municipality has a policy to plant perennial plantings in central locations throughout the city. Thank you for your inquiry.” ■

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https://www.jpost.com/environment-and-climate-change/article-869110