How a guerrilla gardener is fighting against insect extinction

Christiane Habermalz, a guerrilla gardener, shows up for an interview with a war wound. While trimming a thuja hedge, a large splinter of wood lodged in her hand. When she now holds up her heavily bandaged middle finger, she simultaneously demonstrates her opinion of thuja. The evergreen plant, also known as the arborvitae, can be found in every second German front garden – and offers neither food nor shelter to a single native animal species.

Christiane Habermalz, injured in the fight against the evergreen Thuja, shows which plants she prefers: She planted native shrubs at the edge of a park.

Source: Linde Gläser/RND

Habermalz's 2020 book, "Incitement to Gardening Disobedience," is also a declaration of war against such useless greenery. In it, she describes her path into the ecological underground. What began with small transgressions, such as the "accidental" sowing of bee-friendly weeds on the communal lawn of her apartment building in Prenzlauer Berg, has now become a well-organized guerrilla movement. "Incitement" reports on nighttime planting campaigns in public parks and the secret release of insects, on hidden butterfly-friendly beds, on the war against cherry laurel, thuja, and tree of heaven. It also aims to do away with the eco-lies of hardware stores, parks departments lacking a sense of nature, and the obsession with order among German gardeners.

Since the publication of her book, Habermalz hasn't been idle. "I have a new hobby," she explains, sitting in a small café in her neighborhood, sipping her coffee with her left hand. "I'm breeding caterpillars now." The catalyst was the peacock butterfly caterpillar that simply fell into her cleavage one day. Over the past few months, Berlin has gained several butterflies, all from Habermalz.

The author, who is actually a radio journalist, embarked on her guerrilla career after an entomological study from Krefeld that shocked Germany in 2017. The researchers concluded that 75 percent of all flying insects, and with them a third of the birds, had disappeared from Germany since 1989.

That was almost eight years ago, and five years since the publication of "Incitement." This makes the lines in which the author expresses concern about the near future all the more distressing. "Krefeld 2" is expected to be published in 2026, and the study's director has already told the magazine "Riffreporter" that there is no end in sight to the insect extinction.

"When I wrote the book, it was before the Ukraine war, before Trump, and also before Corona. Climate change and species extinction have unfortunately completely faded from focus since then, even though these threats to our world have not disappeared. Of course, one always asks oneself: Does it actually make any difference? Planting a few flowering plants on one's balcony or a few bushes in the park? I've been asking myself this question ever since I wrote the book," Habermalz says today.

And answers himself: "It may be that there is no turning back. That would require political decisions that are not being made. But... it simply makes you so happy. The difference between a balcony with geraniums and one with wildflowers is so infinitely great that you immediately get a feeling for the resilience and vitality of nature." Turn your attention away from the major catastrophe and towards the small things where you yourself can make a difference. For example, by sowing wild marjoram. By controlling aphids with parasitic wasps instead of poison. By planting a buckthorn or buckthorn for brimstone butterflies. These butterflies cannot feed on other plants.

It all started in the garden in front of the author's house - initially with small transgressions.

Source: Linde Gläser/RND

If one wants to crystallize the principles from Habermalz's book and movement, then the first must be: conventional agriculture is the culprit for the decline in insect populations and thus for the decline of nature. "Our landscapes are impoverished and over-fertilized, destroyed by pesticides, excessive use of artificial fertilizers, and the dumping of manure from factory farming on meadows and fields," says the author. The most devastating finding from the Krefeld study at the time was: the decline in insect populations does not stop at nature reserves. The areas where the animals should be safe are just as poisoned by the groundwater as the cultivated land. When it comes to biodiversity, the city has therefore become the new countryside: far away from fertilizers and pesticides, animals that specialize in nutrient-poor locations can survive here. And this is where Habermalz comes to their aid.

It's not far to the nearest "guerrilla beds," which the author still tends. The city park next to the café is busy, the lawn trampled to sand in many places. Only along its edges is there growth and bloom. Here, Habermalz knows every plant and shrub by name: blackthorn, cherry plum, oxtongue. She planted most of them herself, for wild bees, butterflies, and other insects.

From her roof terrace, Christiane Habermalz can overlook her work in the neighboring park.

Source: Linde Gläser/RND

Only those who know will notice that someone is gardening here. Habermalz explains: The "beds" mustn't be too conspicuous, otherwise they might be removed by the authorities. But they also shouldn't look too overgrown, lest people throw their trash into them or trample everything down. Guerrilla gardening requires a high tolerance for frustration. She now has a radar for the areas that no one will take care of. And next to the insect rescuers, she always plants a few "acceptance plants," such as crocuses or tulips, which are intended to appease the wandering eye without attracting too much attention.

Which brings us to guideline two: the appeal against the constant obsession with order. "If we simply stopped making everything so unbelievable, mowing every little roadside verge where it's not even necessary, then so much would be gained for nature," says the journalist.

Nature needs cracks. And "junk corners," as Habermalz likes to say and write. "The German soul can't stand letting an old garden shed simply rot away. Many birds depend on such structures for breeding and insects for overwintering." A single nettle-covered corner can be home to various butterfly species, and an old shed is better than any insect hotel. Often, doing less is enough: leaving the rotten tree trunk alone, letting the nettles grow rampant, and forgetting about weeding.

But how do you get that into the minds of German allotment gardeners? "Interestingly, it's primarily the older members of my readership who were deeply touched by my book. Because they still know a lot of what I write about from home," says Christiane Habermalz. "The gardens I criticize have been created in the new housing developments over the last 20 or 30 years. Gardens used to be laid out very differently, with fruit trees and beech hedges, compost heaps, vines on the facade, and vegetables. It's this old gardening culture that we need again now."

Every hardware store now sells insect hotels, and many garden centers label certain plants as particularly bee-friendly. But both are marketing gimmicks: Habermalz's research has painfully revealed that these "hotels" are often completely unsuitable for insects, and that "bee-friendly" plants are all too often just as contaminated with pesticides as any other ornamental plant. Guideline three: Not everything that says "insect-friendly" actually is.

Ultimately, every problem Habermalz encounters is a systemic flaw. A symptom of a throwaway society and capitalism in its final stages. The oscillation between glimmers of hope and despair, which resonates on every page of "Anzündung," has not left the author even five years later. But from her roof terrace, she can survey her work: In her garden and in the neighboring park, flowers are visible from afar. She has given countless insects a home. Every community needs at least one like Christiane Habermalz—walking encyclopedia, unstoppable insect savior.

Anyone who wants to join their movement needs it, a focus from the big picture to the small, something very concrete. Use soft mortar instead of cement for walls so that wild bees can dig their tunnels. Pull out the geraniums, plant a bee-friendly viper's bugloss. Plant a meadow instead of a lawn. But you have to know these things.

The Incitement to Horticultural Disobedience has 289 pages, costs 9.99 euros and was published by Heyne-Verlag.