A garden without wildlife is hardly a garden at all

Ever changing ever new

Our average affluent north Durban suburban garden owner has the most  uninteresting sterile garden possible planted to a very limited number of sterile unchanging plants such as Philodendron selloum cv. Xanadu, bright coloured crotons Codiaeum variegatum, dust collecting Dianella tasmanica variegata, Ophiopogon japonica, Ophiopogon jaburan variegata a never changing boring landscape. Masses of boring single straight stemmed palms, yellow leaved Duranta erecta Sheena's Gold ™ which have been trimmed into hedges, balls and who knows what, to me a plant that is this colour is  critically ill and needs to be removed. All to be finished of with horrible gaudy purple border bedding plants such as purple setcreasea Tradescantia pallida and Rheoe Tradescantia spathacea

Croton Codiaeum variegatum

The Croton Codiaeum variegatum above is very clearly a magnificent plant that has its uses but it never changes how it looks which in time becomes overpowering and boring and in particular it is sterile, it attracts no wildlife at all it could very easily be replaced in the garden with an identical copy made of plastic and few if any people would be any the wiser. These magnificently colourful plants most certainly do not bring life into the garden.

Change and variety are the spices of life and that applies in particular when planning a garden either exotic or indigenous if one would like to create tranquillity in the garden and to provide the greatest of benefit for the user and observer.

In a Proudly South African living garden planted to our local South African plants there are never two days that are the same, it is ever changing, ever interesting, the  bright yellow bloom of a Hibiscus calyphyllus or Hibiscus surattensis here this morning gone this afternoon a flush of blooms the following day.

 

Hibiscus surattensis  bright and beautiful ever changing never the same.

Dietes grandiflora and Dietes iridioides which come to their full glory for a single day in the spring and early summer months after a drop in atmospheric pressure, then wait for the next drop in pressure to repeat the spectacle. A blaze of blue from the Agapanthus Agapanthus praecox spp.orientalis for a few weeks during midsummer, a blaze of orange from the aloes during the winter to be followed by a blaze of red from the coral tree Erythrina lysistemon announcing the early spring that attract birds and insect 

A brightly coloured butterfly here and brightly coloured bird over there plucking a bright berry from a Psychotria capensis bush. A brightly coloured carpenter bee sucking nectar from the flower of a Justicia betonica, dragonflies doing their amazing aerial displays, interesting and brightly insects every where.

A brightly coloured carpenter bee Xylocopa caffra sucking nectar from the flower of a Justicia betonica

A bright coloured bird flying overhead to alight and pluck a bright red berry from a Psychotria capensis in full fruit in the winter. An interesting and colourful bug sitting on a flower, interesting colourful insects everywhere you look in the garden. A Striped Skink Trachylepsis striata sunning its self on a stone and one up on the roof garden waiting for a fat fly to pass by, a blue headed tree agama Acanthocercus atricollis sunning itself on the trunk of a tree

A spectacled Weaver Ploceus ocularis building its nest on a Strelitzia tree Strelitzia nicolai outside my kitchen door.

These things are seldom seen and experienced in your regular traditional Durban garden with its mostly sterile tropical and subtropical plants that appear to never change from season to season, day to day, week to week, year to year, never changing always the same. Many of these gardens may just as well be made of brightly coloured plastic and concrete for all the life that they bring into the garden. Well manicured bright un-natural colours, coarse textures.

  

A well designed garden planted exclusively to our local indigenous plants will be green and tranquil full of interest, full of beauty, with green that comes in every texture, form and shade is ever changing ever new. Every day there is a new surprise, as flower buds burst open to expose a splash of brilliant colour, sometimes lasting only a few hours and sometimes weeks on end then back to the tranquillity of green to soothe the soul.

A very easy plant to propagate and to grow is this magnificent pendulous Gladiolus cruentus a rare critically endangered local gem seldom if ever seen in cultivation in South Africa

A brightly coloured sun bird gently alights on a leonotis intermedia to sip nectar before flitting off to another brightly coloured plant or to hawk a passing insect in mid air.

During the day bright orange paradise flycatchers with their long tail feathers dart out under the canopies of the trees to catch a passing fly and as the sun dips its head below the horizon tiny little bats appear doing tight aerobatics under the same trees to hawk the insects that they feed on.

I look out the window and see a bright coloured Locust Zonocerus elegans which feeds on the milk weed plant Gomphocarpus physocarpus which is also the host plant to the African Monarch Butterfly.

A bright coloured Locust Zonocerus elegans resting on the flower of a grass aloe, Aloe cooperii

A bronze back manikin alights on a grass stem to pluck a seed head of Panicum maximum to build his nest,  later I see him return to collect the fluffy flower heads of natal redtop grass Melinis repens to line it with.

A bright red African Fire Finch arrives on the ground just outside my kitchen door to look for seed and insects.

African Fire Finch Lagonosticta rubricata

The sound of the Crested Barbet that has his home in a nest box I placed in a tree directly opposite my kitchen window only a few metres away, the sound of  Painted Reed Frogs in a small pond of arums in the evening a garden which is a haven for wildlife in all its forms both day and night with interest without end, is this not what a garden should be.

Painted Reed Frog Hyperolius marmoratus

To maximise the life in a garden it must be planned with as large a variety of interesting local plants to create habitat, which provides shelter, breeding and feeding opportunities for all manner of creatures both great and small. Thereafter we need to do little more to encourage life into our gardens, if the conditions are right wildlife will come and stay of its own. The bigger the variety of plants and habitat types the greater the numbers of creatures that will be attracted. The garden must have water, it must have lawn to serve as green pathways and to separate the different elements of the garden. Do not forget a bench here a table and chairs there so that one can sit and relax and enjoy the garden and its wildlife.

African Monarch butterfly Danaus chrysippus on the flower of it´s host plant the Milk Weed Gomphocarpus physocarpus

There is no reason why a garden that is maximised for wildlife should not be planned and planted to the highest standards of landscape design incorporating only our local plants and a slightly different order to what has traditionally been accepted here in South Africa and much of the world.

When it comes to maintenance the garden must still be well manicured just as the sterile traditional garden in particular at the entrance and near to the house but it will need to be a slightly different order, the beds will still need to be edged, the lawn mowed and the weeds removed, no one wants to be greeted by a mess. However the maintenance must not show a misguided sense of order it must not be carried out with sensitivity and not to the detriment of the life in the garden.

All the photos that I used in this article have been taken in my own garden at Mount Moreland north of Durban.

Michael Hickman

Landscape Design Specialist

www.ecoman.co.za

michael@ecoman.co.za

05.04.14

Please do not leave this page without clicking on the G+ button below if you do not have a Google profile it is about time that you registered for one

Lily Grass or Weeping Anthericum

Anthericum saundersiae Synonym. Chlorophytum saundersiae

Anthericum saundersiae is an excellent and very versatile landscape bedding plant that can be grown in the full sun semi and even full shade it is an asset to any landscape design in particular where one would like to plant a productive plant the brings in vast amounts of wildlife into the landscape or garden.

Anthericum saundersiae plant is named after Katharine Saunders plant collector and botanical artist who was born Katharine Wheelwright (1824-1901) in Tansor, Northamptonshire, England  she emigrated to Tongaat, Natal with her husband James who later became the sole proprietor of the Tongaat Sugar Estate in 1860.

I first collected Anthericum saundersiae which I found growing in full sun at the Treasure Beach grasslands in Durban in the late 1970`s. The tiny insignificant single stemmed specimen that I collected grew rapidly under my care and soon started to produce vast amounts of seed which germinated readily under the ideal conditions that I gave it and in no time at all I had large numbers of this delightful little plant. Anthericum saundersiae produces a profusion of little white star like flowers on long thin, arching stems from mid winter into late summer. Some years later I gave a number of my still unidentified plants to Geoff Nichols who took a specimen to the Natal Herbarium at Botanic Gardens where it was identified as Anthericum saundersiae. I grew and sold Anthericum saundersiae in my own nursery in small numbers but after they found their way to the Silver Glenn indigenous plant nursery they were propagated in large numbers making them much more available to the public.

In 2001 I went to stay in Germany where I became familiar with a very similar and popular specie Anthericum ramosa Syn. graminifolium so I was not at all surprised when I returned to South Africa seven years later and found Anthericum saundersiae growing in their countless thousands in nearly every new garden planting in and around Durban. Whether those plants now in cultivation came from the one tiny specimen that I collected way back in the 1970`s or from another source I do not know and probably will never know but the likely hood is certainly high that they did.

Anthericum saundersiae is a very productive trouble free garden plant that grows to about 700 mm which is ideal for the natural garden in that it attracts vast numbers of insects in particular large numbers of bee species from the very smallest to large bumble bees that when they land on the flower they weight them almost down to the ground causing them to bob up and down as they move from flower to flower setting the plants in motion as if they are dancing. I have observed that the foliage is also loved by Scrub Hares, domestic rabbits and in particular Egyptian Geese.

Although Anthericum saundersiae prefers to grow in full sun in fertile sandy soil it is a very versatile plant that will grow under almost any conditions in most soils from sand to heavy clay soils in frost free areas.

Anthericum saundersiae propagates very easily and profusely from seed but can also be subdivided when seed is not available. Seed germinates best in raised seed beds or directly on the ground in prepared sandy soil with a little very well rotted compost added, poor results may be obtained if seed is planted into a bark based growing medium in seed trays

Acacia karroo one of South Africa's most beautiful and useful trees.

Acacia karroo (Vachellia karroo) Sweet thorn

This is one of South Africa's most beautiful and useful trees.

Acacia karroo

Acacia karroo which is native to southern Africa is a very attractive medium sized tree which due to it´s very wide natural distribution and tolerance to a wide range of soil types makes it suitable as a landscape tree in practically in any proudly South African garden. 

CMR Bean Beetle Mylabris oculata

In addition to being very attractive and suitable as a landscape feature it is also environmentally a very productive tree that attracts very large numbers of insects when in flower in particular honey bees which makes it an asset to any garden. When out of flower it is the host for a large number of insect species including butterfly many or which are a valuable food source for in particular birds. Acacia karroo is fast growing and flowers when very small so there is no need to wait for years to see and to experience the benefits of planting this tree.

Honey Bee Mimic Eristalinus taeniops

Acacia karroo is an integrally part of our country's history having been used for everything from raft-making to sewing needles and fencing for the houses of the royal Zulu women. The thorns were even used by early naturalists to pin the insects they collected!

Common Dotted Fruit Chafer Cyrtothyrea marginalis

A long running debate about the classification of Acacia was resolved at the 2011 Botanical Conference held in Melbourne.

The debate arose out of research over the past few decades which established that the two main groups of acacias (the African and Australian groups) were distinct and needed to be separated into different genera. The debate centered around the issue of which group of plants would retain the name Acacia, based on the following opposing views:

Those supporting the retention of the name Acacia for the African group argued that the genus was originally described from an African species, Acacia nilotica

Those supporting the retention of Acacia for the Australian group argued that the vast majority of species occurred in Australia and that reclassification of those species would incur considerable disruption and expense.

In the end the Australians were the winners and a group of African trees know as Acacias since ancient and biblical times now have other names.

Until the reclassification of the genus, Acacia had about 1400 species spread over five sub-genera.  Now Acacia is a genus of around 1000 species, most of which occur in Australia with another dozen or so being found in Asia.

Garden Fruit Chafer Pachnoda sinuata

What we have always known as Acacia karroo is now officially known as

Vachellia karroo a name that many including myself having voted against the name change will never accept.

Do you have a Lawn just because "Everyone Else Does"

Most home owners and "landscapers" here in South Africa assume that having a badly planned, weed  infested, poorly managed grassy area in the garden called "a lawn" is somehow an obligatory part of landscape design.

This has not always been the case in fact historically a lawn as we know it is a relatively recent introduction to landscape design and is not practised universally in all countries.

For those not attracted to that rather monotonous "green desert" look of your average lawn or who dislike having to mow the lawn every week there are options, in particular for small gardens. Whose garden is it any way, who do you have to please other than yourself?

After all are gardens not for growing plants in? Then why not make maximum use of the space available creating green pathways or gravel pathways only wide enough to get to the various areas of the garden and to separate the various groups of plants.

Make your garden interesting and pleasing to the eye make it a paradise for wildlife instead of it being a “living dead garden” make it a “Proudly South African” indigenous garden that is a haven to wildlife.

Add some interest add some colour to your garden start today

Red Hot Poker Kniphofia tysonii

getting to know the ropes

This whole blogging thing is rather new to me in fact you can measure the time in minutes so please have a little patience with me while I learn the ropes

Gazania krebsiana the mother plant was collected a Monteseel inland of Durban