In line with the need to enhance urban biodiversity, this is a green wall or vertical garden with a marked difference; a meaningful experimental project which is being championed by the developers of The Art Mile, Tomorrowco.
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More and more people are becoming interested in converting their gardens to have a more natural look. Water consumption is obviously also an issue (and believe me, is going to get worse). The following is a step-by-step recipe for doing the plant layout of a grassland garden. This is a real life example with real names, but you can substitute with whatever you find more interesting.
Grassland biome plants are dominated by grass species. Trees are sparse, except in a few localized habitats. Bulbs and other plants with an underground root stock are often abundant. Frosts, fire and grazing maintain the grass dominance and prevent the establishment of trees.
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.
The English TV show ‘Grand Designs’ should be accompanied by a warning for viewers. Watching this programme will make you feel that you could, and should, also build that slightly different masterpiece that will become a great family home. So when we returned to South Africa, after 10 years of living in the UK, we aimed to do just that.
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.
The rehabilitation* of disturbed land, especially in an urban environment, can add so much value to the users of the site. Think Central Park in New York. It need not be on that scale, but it can add the same quality of life.
The current mainstream approach to landscaping in South Africa still has its roots in the Western European model. The general approach is a beautiful garden full of flowers with straight lines, small variety and trimmed edges. In other words, dynamic exterior decoration that is pleasing to the eye, but high maintenance and to a large extent, sterile. (There are, of course, exceptions like the British meadow garden).
In many developments, it is claimed that a landscaped site has been restored to a natural state or that only indigenous plants have been used during implementation. There is always tacitly implied that some kind of ecosystem was created. However, there is no industry standard against which it can be assessed.
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