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| Dear "friends" of the gardening fraternity I was so pleased to have stumbled on this site when trying to identify a delightful plant with blue flowers (aristea ecklonii - bit of a weed, but it is wonderful). My neighbours & I moved into a lunar landscape last August .. saving grace was a beautiful view over a gorge and the wonderful Macaranga trees & albizia adianthifolias. We've established indigenous gardens & are amazed that so many people who live in this richly diverse country can't appreciate the great heritage we have. Yes, there is most certainly a place for roses, pansies etc. But,I think the general mindset was that "indigenous" was aloes, cactus (!) and succulents. We'll certainly try to keep in contact (going to get my neighbour, Ben, to also join up) and send digi photos (actually I should have said "dodgy") of our gardens.
Kind regards Susan |
Follow-Up Postings:
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- Posted by jungle_cottage sub tropics (My Page) on Fri, Oct 31, 03 at 1:05
| Hello Susan of KZN,I also found this forum quite exciting when I stumbled in. I am also from KZN. I am ruthless about exotics and dont like pansies and roses at all,I dont think they have a place in Africa at all. But for those who have struggled with them under the african sun and can present a picture perfect cottage garden some place up in the mist belt under clouds of azaleas dripping with fuscias and hillocks of hydrangeas well then,why not,we all have mothers dont we.
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| Hi Guys I cannot agree with you more. We have such beautiful indigenous plants in SA and they attract insects, birds etc. Why buy that expensive timeshare in the bush when you can create a little nature reserve in your garden? And if you can get all your neighbours to plant indigenous then your whole neighbourhood could be a reserve. How far could it go? Imagine if you flew over Johannesburg and all you saw were indigenous trees! The Johannesburg Nature Reserve. That sounds exciting! Make the suburbs of SA indigenous! |
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| When i lived and gardened in Port Elizabeth in the seventies and eighties, there was almost no resources for buying indigenous plants ... and very stiff fines for collecting them from the wild. Lucky for me i worked at the Divisional Council and as an employee i could get 25 free protea plants from the nursery in Van Stadenskloof, and the proteas did fabulously in my garden as did Strelitzia nicolai and regina. Someone I knew had some Watsonias, but would not share, and I never saw any for sale. Only after getting a garden here in the States and trying to recreate a little bit of home, did i stumble onto Silverhill Seeds and ... I now have more South African native plants in my garden than when I lived there! Isn't that ironic. So nice to see you guys posting! Delina |
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- Posted by jungle_cottage sub tropics (My Page) on Fri, Oct 31, 03 at 20:51
| Exactly right.Whilst now there are some very dependable places to buy local flora in SA a few years ago it was impossibly difficult.Still things are limited. I was most indignant when I moved on contract to London,to find that they had much, much more to offer than back home. |
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