Indigenous Nursery News Blog

Happy First Day of Spring! Come and soak up the splendour that explodes from the nursery at this time of year.

With such an amazing diversity of plants indigenous to South Africa, we are truly spoilt for choice.

Spring has greeted us dramatically at Random Harvest Indigenous Plant Nursery this year.

The lovely cold snap of weather at the end of winter has emphasised the welcome warm sunshine of the beginning of spring.

I love this time of year, and particularly here on the Highveld, we see a marked change with many plants coming into bloom as a stark contrast to the beautiful but browner colours of winter.

Here are some interesting facts for you on this first day of spring.

• Trees, shrubs and all manner of plants are sensitive not only to temperature but to length of the day as well.  As both increase they trigger plants to start putting out shoots and / or flowers.  Since ancient times, all over the world people have used natural queues from nature to start planting their crops.
• The longer days, and earlier start to the daylight triggers birds to start singing in the early morning. Here on the Highveld the two we hear earliest seem to be the Karoo Thrush and the Cape Robin-chat.

• As the sun moves further south, increasing our hours of sunlight, the migrating birds follow its path south as well. It won’t be long before some of our summer bird visitors arrive.
• September marks the start of the planting season on many people’s calendars.  So dust off those garden tools and get out into the garden!

If you don’t know where to start, remember that we have friendly informed staff, and Linda is available to give expert indigenous gardening advice – please contact us to make an appointment.