Mulch Love
A while back Sonya asked my advice on pruning her Wild Dagga. “Hack it down close to the base,” I told her and I have now taken a couple of pics to illustrate what I meant.
I must stress that this isn’t professional advice and there may be a better way of pruning but it works for me. Every year the Wild Dagga grows back fuller and bushier.
Khanyisa Projects is assisting in the implementation of community garden projects in the eThekwini Municipality as part of the Integrated Water Resource Management (IWRM) Programme. The garden groups (from KwaMashu, Mzinyathi & Maphephetheni) will be selling their produce at the I Heart Market between 8h30 – 13h00 on Saturday, 11 July at St Mary’s Church … Read more
A few months back we posted a story about spekboom and its amazing carbon-soaking potential (How cool is spekboom?). Since then we’ve noticed it sprouting up all over the place. If anyone in Durban is looking for spekboom plants, I can supply cuttings and they are really easy to grow. Spreading the Spekboom love So … Read more
I was (once again) looking through the pictures I have of my friend’s mom’s indigenous garden. While a lot of the plants look quite straggly and the garden uneven – indigenous gardens are wild and the antithesis of a prim rose garden – I came across these pics of a Strelitzia, which really stands out.
While Strelitzias are a dime a dozen in South Africa, they are in fact a unique and beautiful indigenous plant. Apparently the genus is named after Mecklenburg-Strelitz, the birthplace of Queen Charlotte, wife of King George III. It is also commonly known as the crane flower (in South Africa) and the bird of paradise flower as its flowers supposedly resemble the bird.
In an article about this year’s Chelsea Flower Show, I saw a photograph of an elaborate bug hotel consisting of different sizes of wood piled up in a wire frame. It looked great and, more importantly, performed a valuable service. Bugs love an untidy garden. So do I. Piles of dead wood and leaves lying … Read more