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Since we developed our garden, the sand has not been such a problem. |
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We like to sit in the garden at break in the shade of the trees. |
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Even some strange new reptiles have to come to live at our school! |
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Learning has become more fun since we started doing science investigations in the garden. |
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Our garden attracts birds and butterflies that we never used to see at the school. |
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We have a water-wise garden. We have a beautiful school and don’t have to pay a huge water bill. |
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Overseas visitors have visited our school to ask us how we developed our garden! |
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Members of our community have their wedding pictures taken in our school garden! |
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What is indigenous? When we say something is indigenous, we mean that it originally came from a particular area. So if you say that a plant or animal is indigenous, you must also specify the area you are talking about. For example, the Cape Flats Erica is indigenous to the Cape Flats between Wynberg and Zeekoevlei. When people talk about planting indigenous plants, they often mean plants that are indigenous to South Africa. However, this doesn’t necessarily mean that they are indigenous to Cape Town or even to the Cape Floristic Region. They might come from the semi-deserts of Namaqualand, the forests of KwaZulu Natal or the Highveld grasslands. If you want to plant a water-wise garden, it is best to choose plants that are indigenous to the Cape region rather than plants from summer rainfall regions of South Africa. This is because Cape plants do not need much watering during the dry Cape Town summer. |
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Many schools in Cape Town have created indigenous gardens. Here are some of the reasons why people at these schools think indigenous gardening is great!
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Most “indigenous gardens” are not actually indigenous to the local area; instead the plants are indigenous to South Africa as a whole. If you decide to create a “mini nature reserve” in your school or community, or want to restore a local natural area that has become degraded, it makes good ecological sense to choose the plants that originally grew in your area. Some indigenous plants have different varieties that grow in different parts of the country. The Bietou bush (Chrysanthemoides monilifera) and Real Yellowwood tree (Podocarpus latifolius) are two examples. The different varieties look slightly different from one another but can inter-breed. Years ago, people in Cape Town imported Bietou bushes and Yellowwood trees from the Garden Route. They have mixed with local varieties of these species and formed hybrids that are no longer the same as the local species. In order to conserve local varieties of plants, we should try to plant varieties that originally came from Cape Town in our gardens. Working for Wetlands, which is restoring rivers and wetlands in Cape Town, has set up nurseries to propagate varieties of plants that originally grew at these sites. By planting locally indigenous plants, Working for Wetlands is helping to conserve not only the diversity of species but also the diversity of varieties within a species. This is an example of conserving genetic diversity. |
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Click the buttons to find out more about planting Indigenous.
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Why Plant Indigenous?
Planting a garden or restoring nature?