Berlin volunteers water ninety thousand street trees each week
Twelve thousand volunteers in Berlin now water ninety thousand street trees to help them survive increasingly hot summers.
Amanda Gläser-Bligh named her linden tree Linda and carries twenty liters of water to its roots every week during hot months. Passersby often stop to ask what she is doing and look at the tree differently once they learn the truth.
The Gieß den Kiez app tracks over ninety thousand trees and calculates water needs based on age and local rainfall patterns for each specific location. Color coding shows which trees require immediate attention while volunteers log their watering activities on the mobile platform.
On June twenty seventh Berlin recorded a high temperature of thirty nine point nine degrees Celsius while people poured eight thousand liters over trees. This massive effort helped maintenance crews who cannot keep up when temperatures spike dramatically across the entire city.
Anna Mehrländer notes that people care about trees almost like they care about pets during these challenging environmental conditions. The project started in twenty twenty and saw nearly half a million liters poured during early pandemic lockdown months.
“I was really surprised at just how deeply people care about trees — for many people it's almost like caring for a pet”