How does your garden grow? In Israel, not so well

March 12, 2009 - 9:13 PM by

The entrance to Ma'aleh Adumim (Photo: Jacob Richman)

The entrance to Ma'aleh Adumim (Photo: Jacob Richman)

One thing we pride ourselves on in Israel is our public gardens and our private back yards. My own town has beatifully landscaped public spaces filled with seasonal flowers. But that could all end.

If you’ve got a back yard or a garden, plan on decorating it brown this spring. Due to the drought-like winter and the Kinneret being a zillion centimeters below its red line, some drastic measures are likely to be put into effect to save water this year, including a ban on watering both public and private gardens.

And one sad byproduct of that is the likelihood that up to 30,000 Israelis who work in the gardening profession will either lose their livelihoods or have their income drastically cut back.

According to Green Gardens magazine (Ganim Yerukim), in addition to gardeners losing their jobs, there’s likely to be a domino effect on many businesses serving the gardening sector, such as gardening contractors, designers and manufacturers who are left without work.

The Mashov Group which publishes the magazine compiled data that showed that 2,000 workers in the gardening industry have already lost their jobs in recent months. That’s because there’s already been a ban issued by the Water Authority on watering public and private parks, gardens and lawns, effective until the end of April. However, since the winter’s been so dry, it’s likely the ban will continue into the summer.

And even without the water shortage, the Israeli Landscape and Gardening Association reports that the decline in new construction projects due to the the global economic crisis has led to a 60 percent drop in orders for new plantings of lawns and gardens in the private and public sector in the first half of 2009.

The good news, though, is that the Water Authority has hired supermodel Bar Refaeli to star in a campaign to urge Israelis to save water. Unfortunately, after watching the racy ads she’s done for Mei Eden spring water, the male viewers may be in need of cold showers.

YouTube Preview Image

Tags: , , • Category: Environment, General, Israeliness, Life 

Comments

One Comment on How does your garden grow? In Israel, not so well

  1. David on Tue, Mar 24th 2009 9:31 PM

    2. I’m not a botanist but I’ve been interested in plants for quite a while. Offhand, I would assume that most Israeli researchers concentrate on plants suitable for Israel’s environment only. I would just like to point out that, in a normal economy of course, landscapers here in the US are always looking for something new and interesting that is also capable of withstanding harsh winters and still maintain a good appearance in the summer. For example, here in southeastern New England, we get a lot of rain in addition to snow in the winter, which ordinarily would mean a death knell for cacti. So people are usually surprised to see that I have a number of opuntia humifusa, the Eastern prickly Pear, that are doing well, along with others. Another example is a winter hardy palm, trachycarpus fortuneeii, the Chinese Windmill Palm, that can survive here, which would be a sure seller if someone could come up with a dependable strain.

Leave a Comment





© 2012 ISRAELITY | Sitemap