December 2016 january 2017 preview

DECEMBER 2016 / JANUARY 2017

The Future of Gardening Fabulous Foliage

2 Coastal Beauties

Budget Conscious Gardening

Grassland Pelargoniums

IN THIS ISSUE Click on any page number to return to the Contents page

WILD SAGE

DIVERSITY AMONG THE GRASSES

Beautiful Salvia muirii

Emmarie Otto takes us through the beauties among the Highveld grasses

SEASONAL CHEER

BUDGET CONSCIOUS GARDENING

Rich colour for the Christmas patio

Learn a few tricks to keep your garden thriving

WELCOMING YOU HOME Whether sun or shade, create an inspiring garden that welcomes you

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CREATE, RECYCLE, REPURPOSE

December / January Click on any page number to return to the Contents page

WHAT’S IN FLOWER: We bring you 10 plants currently colouring South African gardens

Bare Patches for Wildlife Many creatures need access to the bare soil

FABULOUS FOLIAGE Use leaf colour alone to grow beautiful dry-space gardens

THE FUTURE OF GARDENING Introducing an important series we will unpack through 2017

HOLIDAYS! XEROPHYTA ELEGANS A beautiful rock-hugging plant for shade

Needing to keep the family occupied? Try out our online butterfly puzzles

GRASSLAND PELARGONIUMS

COASTAL BEAUTIES

Pink and maroon Cranesbill

Hibiscus tileaceus & Pavetta revoluta

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FROM THE EDITORS DESK… Dear Readers, All gardeners look forward to the end of year break; if they’re not planning a new bed, they’re reading gardening magazines, and doing research. What plants do you hope will be under your Christmas tree? I plan to lift up meters of lawn during this downtime, to make space for my favourite habitat – grassland. So, I’m hoping for wild grasses and wildflowers. There may well be a few presents labelled, ‘Dear Anno, with love from Anno,' and I know the dogs will be generous too.

Weather conditions have challenged both urban and rural landscapes, this past year especially, and, even as the drought breaks in some areas, and still lingers in others, we can no longer ignore the need to change the way we do things. ‘Resilience requires both persistence and change,' suggest ecologists Gunderson and Holling. Through the next year we will unpack just what this means for the gardener. But we bring you some cheer too; a marvellously happy patio shelf display for the Christmas season. Emmarie finds some Highveld treasures among her mid-summer wild grasses; as the purse lightens, we offer ways for budget conscious gardening; look at two entrance designs, and provide ways to use succulent leaf colour alone to grow beautiful dry-space gardens. Looking to throw away bits and bobs? Treasure, don’t trash, and rather create, recycle, and repurpose;

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we offer images to generate some ideas.

Coastal gardeners have a choice of two shrubs, and we suggest when to leave bare patches for the wildlife.

On a final note for the year; with the giftgiving season upon us, think of the homeless animals out there. My family bid a sad farewell to our dearest cat, Hobbes. He was a special boy we homed from the Kloof and Highway SPCA 11 years ago. And, while our hearts are still too sore now, we will open our home again to another little chap.

Rescue, don’t buy, please - they bring such joy.

Wishing you all a very safe, happy, and restful season with family and friends. And thank you once again for your continued support. We do hope to see you in 2017.

Best wishes

Anno

MAGAZINE PRODUCTION: Editor: Anno Torr Publisher: The Indigenous Gardener Contributing writers: Anno Torr, Jenny Dean, Emmarie Otto All photos by Anno Torr unless otherwise stated.

Other Photo credits: Andrea Abbott, Jenny Dean, Emmarie Otto, Wally Menne. Some image via Wikicommons Graphic Design: Anno Torr

CONTACT US: Editor: anno@theindigenousgardener.co.za 072 602 5610 Advertising: Veronica: info@theindigenousgardener.co.za Accounts: Hermes: info@theindigenousgardener.co.za

Disclaimers and Copyrights: Opinions expressed in this magazine do not reflect those of The Indigenous Gardener or any project related to The Indigenous Gardener. Whilst every effort has been made to ensure accuracy, The Indigenous Gardener cannot be held liable for inadvertent mistakes. No part of this magazine may be reproduced without the written consent of the publisher.

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N FLOWER - DEC / JAN

Dichrostachys cinerea: Sickle Bush A small, spiny tree up to 7 m high. Very rough bark, unusual pink and yellow flowers, and coiling seed pods that make excellent Christmas decorations. Flowers from September to February. Often seed pods at the same time. Nitrogen-fixing plant that can form impenetrable thickets. Handles moderate frost but protect when young. Drought hardy.

Enjoys a range of habitats and is common in warm, dry savannas. Butterfly host.

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N FLOWER - DEC / JAN

Karomia speciosa: Wild Parasol Flower Large shrub up to 4 m for light to partial shade. Produces a mass of purple to pink flowers.

Evergreen in warm regions; deciduous in colder climates. Copes with a seasonal drought but prefers good rains and is moderately frost hardy. Flowers from summer to autumn. Attracts insects. Northern KZN, Mpumalanga, and Limpopo, Swaziland, in bush or wooded areas on hot, dry, rocky slopes as well as in riverine thickets.

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ne of the best performing artists of the summer Cape garden, the Wild Sage is one of the most attractive of this hardy family. Salvia muirii is a small sub-shrub growing to between 30 cm high in its natural environment, but often taller in cultivation.

Typical of the fynbos species it has a woody stem and underground rootstock from which new growth sprouts after a fire. Oval leaves are

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Wild Sage

grey-green, fairly thick and leathery to the touch, with a slight fragrance of menthol and eucalyptus when crushed. Bi-coloured flowers, usually lavender blue with a central white patch on the lower lip, cover the bush from December to March. Flowering is prolific in ideal conditions, being full sun and welldrained soils. The dark red calyces stay on the stem as the flower falls off. Older plants can develop a loose growth habit; simply pinch out growing tips, or give a light prune after flowering to retain a compact form. Flowers are popular with bees.

Its small size makes the Wild Sage a perfect fit for small gardens, rockery, or as a container plant for a sunny patio – imagine a Christmas dinner outdoors surrounded by pots of lavender blue and snowdrop white. Propagation is via seed, layering, and from semi-hardwood cuttings taken in spring and summer.

• Kirstenbosch Botanic Gardens cultivates a dark

blue variety.

Despite being easy to cultivate, wild populations are restricted to the dry fynbos regions of the Western Cape, growing on sandy soils.

•

Beautiful bi-coloured lower lip of Salvia muirii provides a landing platform for insects.

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Text and images by Emmarie Otto

Jamesbrittenia aurantiaca

Diversity among the Summer Grasses

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uring summer there is an explosion of diversity and colour in the grassland garden, and what follows is merely a glimpse of flowers found in the wild garden during this time of the year.

Shades of white The freshness and lightness created by the colour white are hard to match. During early summer the dainty white flowers of the wild indigenous carnation, Dianthus mooiensis show up between the grasses

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during November. It is a hardy and evergreen perennial and I have planted the Wild pink in my front garden at the glass doors of the lounge where we can regularly enjoy them. I recently added the Dianthus basuticus (the Drakensberg carnation), both the white and soft pink flowering forms. The carnations occur naturally in rocky grasslands and are a must for any wild garden.

Also here is the indigenous Dimorphotheca jucundum, with white daisy- like flowers.

This plant occurs naturally in the Highveld

Dimorphotheca jucundum & Scabiosa columbaria

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Fabulous Foliage

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ucculent species are finding their place in the sun as we all search out a more resource- respectful way to garden. And they are a remarkable category of plant with great adaptive abilities to survive extreme conditions like lengthy periods of water and heat stress. So their current popularity is well deserved. For many, though, succulents are a rather acquired taste; with images of English meadow gardens trending, who would want these dry, uninspir-

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ing landscapes? Let us delve then into the exciting world of succulent foliage, for their survival responses can help the gardener design beautiful tapestries – with leaf colour alone.

While it is true that flowers of remarkable hues burst forth, almost overnight, after showers of rain. But these are often fleeting and temperamental displays, ever more so in uncertain weather conditions, as plants respond to water by flowering and setting

Bright green Aloe maculata; jade blue Curio.

seed quickly before the rain moves off and known. A water-soluble pigment, anthocyathe summer heat takes over. It makes sense nin, is in action at here; this pigment acts as from a design point of view to mix and a natural sunscreen – among many other match leaf colour, shape, and form, before important functions – helping to protect even considering the flower, for foliage leaves from solar overload. It is the anthoprovides the architecture of the garden cyanin molecules swimming around in year round. And for the wildlife gardener? their cellular water that colours leaves red Focused as we are on flowers, we often - Kalanchoe sexangularis and K. thyrsiflora neglect the importance of leaves as a food make a spectacular impact in their coats of source. Read on. red. The degree of colour change often indiSeasonal hues: cates the degree of dryness; a full coating in Red-tinged foliage is a common response extreme conditions, just the slightest brush to dry or cold conditions, something for of crimson early on with increasing coverwhich the crassulas and kalanchoes are well age across the leaf surface as the dry sea-

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The Future of Gardening “There is no clearer illustration of the extent of human dominance of the Earth than the fact that maintaining the diversity of ‘wild’ species and the functioning of ‘wild’ ecosystems will require increasing human involvement.”, commented an influential group of scientists in Science Magazine, 1997. An irony lost on many I expect.

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t is encouraging to see advice on waterwise gardening trending in every form of modern media, and hopefully, we are all adding many more water-wise species, arranging them in water-use zones, capturing rainwater, and recycling greywater. These are all measures of merit and must be practised irrespective of rainfall volumes, but, with historical weather patterns changing designing resilient landscapes is becoming an increasingly more complex one that is not easily solved by plant choice and water recycling alone. To make an effective and long-lasting impact will take a big shift in how both the professional and the home gardener design and manage urban landscapes.

Over the course of the next year we will unpack the issues; what changes can we expect; how will this affect the way we currently garden; how will plants respond to unavoidable disruption? We need to understand a little more about how things work so we can be a part of the solution, rather than being forced to react to what-

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By Anno Torr

ever events unfold. We too, need to adapt.

For example; we now all know that excessive CO2 levels in the atmosphere will increase temperatures. And so we diligently plant Spekboom as our way of helping to reduce these levels, all the while disrupting natural carbon sinks as we dig and turn the soil, chop down trees, and clear grasslands releasing volumes of CO2 in the process. A lesser known fact is that these high levels affect plant growth too; specialists call it ‘atmospheric fertilisation,' with high pollution levels also creating unusual growing conditions.

Likely ways a changing climate will affect us: It is hot and humid here today, 36 oC; yesterday was 19 oC, cool and wet. The historical seasonal, even day-to-day, weather patterns that we rely on for planting, pruning, flower, seeding and fruiting, are increasingly difficult to predict, with wild swings from day to day. Weather events are predicted to be stronger and more prolonged.

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