Are you a nature lover looking for greenery in the middle of the urban jungle? Discover Seed Balling! This method was created in New York in 1973 by residents who wanted to bring nature back to the poor neighbourhoods of the city.
Seed Balling consists of creating small balls of clay loaded with seeds (flowers, fruit, vegetables, aromatic plants, etc.), which you then « throw » wherever you want and will germinate when they come into contact with water.
This solution makes it possible to sow all kinds of plants in unusual and often ultra-urbanised places.
To make sure that a Seed Ball will develop, it must be composed of the following elements:
Potting soil is used to grow the seeds while the clay is used to solidify the whole ball. When you make your Seed Ball, remember to moisten it well to obtain a compact soil. By mixing the soil and the clay, you will be able to form your little balls.
Alongside their aesthetic dimension, growing flowers in an urban environment is absolutely necessary. These randomly sowed plants feed bees and all sorts of insects, not to mention birds.
Seed Balls also help to enrich and maintain biodiversity where plant growth is low, by creating a small biotope. Finally, all this greenery consumes the carbon emitted by cars while producing oxygen.
Wastelands, overgrown pavements, building site backfill, flat roofs… Throw your Seed Balls wherever you want to bring back some greenery!
A word of advice: if you want to leave your seeds in vertical places (such as wall cracks), remember to include something to attach the Seed Ball to. You can use a mixture of melted sugar and fresh cream for instance: this natural and very effective adhesive leaves no trace.
Before you prepare your Seed Balls, take a moment to walk around your city’s green spaces to look for seed-bearing plants, including « weeds ». As part of this process of adding the necessary greenery to the city, endemic species should be preferred in order to maintain the balance of biodiversity.
If your Seed Balls are intended to feed the neighbouring fauna, you will find seeds in garden centres to attract pollinating insects, with bee-friendly plants or mixtures of bird-friendly plants and seeds.
Certain species of flowers or plants are likely to adapt better to difficult terrain and conditions. Here is a (non-exhaustive) selection of 4 varieties that can help you in your ecological revolution: