Indigenous Gardening
Maybe it was just a long, lonely COVID-19 winter or I am the eternal optimist, but I think Spring is in the air. Or if it is not, it is a good time to start thinking about it. And now I am talking on behalf of your garden.
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By this time, we are all painfully aware (emotionally and financially) of the consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic. None of us really foresaw the consequences – initially I thought it is only another flu strain. But when it hit the world, including South Africa, it was painful and with long-term implicit consequences that we cannot even imagine at this stage.
Ecological intelligence refers to our ability to understand the processes that occur in nature and our affirmative response to these processes.
That includes our impact on natural resources. In order to understand these processes, we firs have to understand ourselves.
The main aim of the database, created for the Wildflower Wholesale Nursery website, was to collect searchable information about suitable plants for landscaping that occur or are adapted to the Highveld. Currently the database consist of about 900 plant species.
Inherent in the previous topic “Go with the Flow”, is the concept of low maintenance. Although many of you are already familiar with the topic I think it is worth highlighting some points in this regard none the less. I think that low maintenance gardening is something we should all aspire to.
The concept of low maintenance is very closely linked to water, and as we all know, water is becoming a great concern globally.
The secret to a resilient garden is to put the right plant in the right place. Simple, isn’t it? But the right place has a few aspects that we will elaborate on in the next few newsletters. Bear with me, it might save you thousands of Rands in the near future. The most obvious place to start is the soil.
Has a new mass extinction of life on earth already started? After all, it has already happened five times! To answer the question we need to step back and recap some of the earth’s history as related to life.
Before we try and address this question, let us first evaluate our local scenario. We really live in an extraordinary environment. If you really want to experience a time warp, drive from Lanseria to Brits. It may have only taken you thirty minutes or so, but the rocks that you drove past, took 1500 million years to deposit. The youngster amongst them is a mere 2000 million years old. Makes you think, doesn’t it? That is not all – some of the oldest forms of life on earth have left us their skeletons to admire.
A grassland garden contains the grasses associated with our Grassland Biome as well as the perennials and geophytes that also occur amongst the grasses. One can consider this as a locally flavoured “meadow” that the British are very fond of. Although a low maintenance garden, it is certainly not maintenance free.
We are so used to Woolies (or something similar) for putting food on the table that we tend to forget that there was a time when we were actually hunter-gatherers. So, I thought it appropriate to look at Granny’s kitchen for some inspiration.
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