4 SCHOOLS
PEOPLE'S POST | MITCHELL'S PLAIN Tuesday, 7 May 2013
BEACON HILL: GOING WILD
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LAILA MAJIET
GREEN FINGER FINGERS: S: Pupils active in the school’s Environmental Club assisted Sanbi's Refiloe Senne with planting a cycad in the verdant garden at Beacon Hill Secondary. PHOTOS: LAILA MAJIET
A LUSH garden of green plants welcomes pupils, staff and visitors at Beacon Hill Secondary. Filled with indigenous plants, the water-wise garden provides pupils with a Zen-like environment for learning and play. The school is one of five lucky applicants to have been chosen for Kirstenbosch Gardens’ Outreach Greening Programme. Assisting self-motivated schools and community organisations, the programme aims to provide people with the knowledge and horticultural skills to plan, establish, maintain and extend an indigenous garden. The dream of having a beautiful verdant garden at the entrance to the school has been realised three principals later, each principal getting the school closer to realising the vision. Under the supervision of the school’s caretaker, Stephen Noble, the garden was officially opened last Tuesday with the planting of the last plant, a cycad. The plant, also known as a broodboom, is the most threatened plant species on Earth. This was revealed GE GETTING TTING TO W WORK: ORK: Stephen Noble, the caretaker at in the latest global conservation as- Beacon Hill Secondary, helped plant and prune the new sessment by the International Union waterwise garden at the school. Beacon Hill is one of for Conservation of Nature in Octo- five lucky applicants to have been given the tools and ber 2010. Cycads are the oldest living skills to create an indigenous garden as part of Kirsten seed plants and have survived the bosch Gardens’ Outreach Greening Programme. cataclysmic global changes Earth exThe South African National Biodiversity perienced through the millennia. But now they are facing a more dire level Institute’s Zane Matthews says Kirstenof extinction. Cycads take 15 years to reach bosch will give the school five indigenous plants for every alien plant they cut down. reproductive maturity. “Alien plants kill indigenous trees. They In the past 20 years, three of the 38 cycad species found only in South Africa have require a lot more water too,” he says. Established in 1997 at Kirstenbosch Garbeen decimated – and 12 species are criticaldens, according to Sanbi's website, the proly endangered. With the help of a group of pupils, teach- gramme has to date established indigenous ers and parents, the garden will be main- gardens at 48 primary schools and 32 high tained and expanded over the years. The schools across Cape Town. Noble is overjoyed that the project has green space provides a stark contrast against the built environment surrounding blossomed. “Living in a community like Mitchell's it. Parent of former Beacon Hill pupils, Rach- Plain where there is so many social ills that ael Nelson, was one of the driving forces be- kids could be lured into, my heart goes out to them. This space provides them with hind the project, Noble says. “She visited Kirstenbosch and found out hope. Teachers should use the garden and about the programme. She excitedly came bring the pupils out for a lesson. The natural back to the school to inform us about it. That environment can help uplift the teenagers’ is when our interest in starting our own gar- spirits. The garden is there for them to enjoy,” he says. den began,” he explains. Matthews echoes: “The garden is the legaNelson says this is her way of giving back. “We all have a social responsibility to uplift cy of all those involved.” the community,” she says.