The Top 6 Aliens To Watch Out For

You didn't expect to see little green men did you? This is a blog about Landscape Design - albeit from a South African perspective...but still...

I've recently joined Sprig as a guest blogger, and have written a post about an extremely important subject for us here in South Africa - Alien Invasive Plants. You may have noticed a few posts about the subject here before. I wrote about the efforts to control them through biological agents, and the differences between exotic and alien plants

Its important to be able to recognise them, so that you can eradicate them as quickly as possible. So here are some pictures of the most dangerous aliens to be on the lookout for where I live - in Kwazulu Natal, South Africa:

1. Chromolaena odorata - Triffid Weed - This plant spreads like wild-fire, because it seeds itself when it is still young, but it is easy to pull out when its still small.

2. Litsea glutinosa - Indian Laurel - I think this is our biggest threat here in KZN. Under a single tree, thousands of saplings shoot up. They grow at a rapid pace, and are difficult to pull out, even when small.

 3. Cardiospermum grandiflorum - Balloon Vine - Grows up into the tops of trees extremely quickly, and spreads its seeds out of sight. Easy to spot and pull out when its still small.

4. Lantana camara - Don't confuse this with the hybrid, which is safe to plant. Easy to uproot when its still small.

5. Melia azederach - Syringa - Like Litsea, it grows quickly and is hard to remove even when small.

6. Schinus terebinthifolius - Brazilian Pepper - It used to be planted as a fast-growing hedge, because of its pretty berries, but soon became a pest.

Now that you know how to recognise them, take a walk through your garden, and pull them out as quickly as possible...

You can also download a pdf list of all the Invasive Alien Plants of South Africa.

My Darwin Awards Attempt

Everybody wants to be famous, unfortunately for some of us, the only route to fame is infamy. I had decided to keep this embarrassing episode quiet, but infamy calls...

Things have been a little crazy around here the last couple of months - as you may have noticed by the lack of regular posts! I've had lots of ideas for posts rolling around inside my head, but have been seriously short on time because of the weather.

Like my plants, I am happiest when I see storm-clouds gathering, and I relish the prospect of getting drenched in a downpour. You'd probably have to be outside during a Durban summer to truly appreciate the satisfaction of being soaked in a rain shower.
But this year, its been an unreasonably-rainy and warm Summer, which has made it tough trying to fit in all the gardens that we had planned to finish by the Christmas deadline.

Rushing around in the rain and mud, its easy for accidents to happen, and my thoughts kept going back to last Christmas, when I attempted to add weight to Darwin's theory of evolution.

Christmas-eve 2008 was one of those days that just don't seem to have enough hours in it to get everything done. Deadlines, a lack of sleep, add to that a promise to lend a friend my 800 pound roller, and you've got the setup for the perfect Darwin Awards attempt.

I managed to get everything done by early evening, with just enough time to drop off my heavy roller (which takes about 6 strong men to load onto the back of my truck) at my friend's place before rushing to our traditional Christmas-Eve dinner with family.

By this time, all my staff were on their way home, so there was no-one to help me take the roller off the back of the truck. I reversed back up to a pile of sand, to help cushion the fall of the roller as I planned to get it off on my own.
What I didn't notice was the slight incline I had parked the vehicle on, so when I began to pull the roller towards the back, it began to gather momentum.
I stupidly thought that the best way to stop it was by putting my big steel-toe-capped shoes in the way. But the roller had other plans.
It proceeded to roll over my foot, and knock me off the back, onto the sand. At which point I realised too late, that it was still coming.
Before I could move, it fell off the back of the truck, crushing my legs before rolling away.

I lay in agony, before someone called the neighbour (an orthopaedic specialist) who told me that I had surprisingly not broken any bones.

I learned many valuable lessons that day, the most important of which was that no matter how big you think your feet are, never try to stop an 800 pound roller by standing in front of it! Also, don't try and fit too much in before a holiday.

To look on the positive side though - at least I got to truly put my feet up for the entire holidays, and not feel guilty about it. (It took about 4 weeks before I felt normal)
And I suppose I'll always feel a certain embarrassed camaraderie with the actual Darwin Award Winners...well, at least I'm not on my own...

Bad design kills - a gnome for the gnomes

I think we have a serious problem on our hands. I predict unrest in monolithic proportions - if the garden gnomes around the world get wind of this.

I am sorry to say this but the garden gnome has been unceremoniously dethroned as the king of all redundant garden objects. I have just found an object that (as hard as it is to believe) is more redundant than the garden gnome!

I have been looking for a sundial to use as a focal point in a garden that we are finishing up, and found that I had 2 choices. The first being unsuitable because of its rustic look, but the second was closer to what I was looking for. Until I looked closer...

It didn't work. It was made for a Northern Hemisphere garden.

The only obvious answer to its source is that it was made here in South Africa. Surely it couldn't be cheaper or at all necessary to import a piece of concrete from somewhere above the equator?

So that means it was intentionally designed that way?

The person who designed this object is fully deserving of all Dwarvish Wrath that will surely come their way. But I really hope the Gnomes don't forget to scorn the people who sell, distribute and buy a piece of rubbish like this.

I surprised myself at the irrational irritation produced during this discovery. But after giving it some more thought, I realised that what really upset me has less to do with sundials and solidarity with gnomes and more to do with lazy, short-sighted, ill thought out or just plain bad design.

To my way of thinking - a man-made object with no function must have an allegorical, or an aesthetic reason for being. This had neither.

Good design has a lot of responsibility resting on its shoulders. I believe good design should make the world a better place to live in. It should make our lives better, easier, more pleasurable, and simpler. It should save us time, or money, or give us more energy. And truly good designs should be able to fulfill many or all of those descriptions at once.

Unfortunately there are too many bad designs out there, and too many people propagating them. To a certain extent nature evolves, we should take a leaf out of her book. We as intelligent beings should be looking to improve our design with every step, and in every aspect of our lives.

And we should shun bad design as if the lives of gnomes depend on it.

Update : Steeply Sloped Garden

I got a chance today to visit a garden we completed in the beginning of winter this year. Its one of my favourite parts of my job - going back to check and see how things are going in a garden that I've planted months or even years before.

I approach these visits as if I were seeing a long lost friend again - with mixed feelings of excitement and trepidation. You're really looking forward to seeing them, but you're also wondering whether time may have been unkind to your friendship.

As much as I research, and deliberate and finally decide on a design for a garden, there are always things that I haven't bargained for, and sometimes things don't always turn out exactly as I'm expecting. Sometimes a certain plant may not have worked in its situation, other times, weather or pests have taken their toll.

But often the hard work does pay off. Sometimes I'm even pleasantly surprised to see how well things have taken. It may be a combination of plants that I'm trying for the first time or a plant that does very well in its new home. But it always makes me happy to see one of my gardens thriving.

Today was one of those days, and it also happily reinforced my love affair with grasses.  The steep slope from the road up to the house, on which we planted mainly wild grasses is covered in lush green Aristida, and the bergundy plumes of Melinis are a lovely greeting as you drive into the property. Bearing in mind that the garden was planted at the beginning of a relatively dry winter, the growth has been amazing.

The only blight on the visit, was that white ants had eaten the bark off the base of 2 of the Crossberries that we planted on the bank, and in the process assigning them to the compost heap.

The groundcover in front is Asystasia, a pretty little groundcover that thrives in coastal sand dunes, and great for stabilizing banks quickly. The plan is that in time the grove of Cross berries will hide the fence, and blur the boundary. At the same time they will help create a bit of screening from the house.

The Consequences of a Life Disconnected

I noticed today that the Jacarandas are flowering again. Here in South Africa, the purple portent was a signal to students to start studying for end of year exams. If you waited until they layed their purple carpet below the tree you were already in big trouble. How many of these natural signs do we pay attention to these days?
In the past, our ability to survive depended on our intimate knowledge, and connection with nature. We'd be watching for the migration of birds, or the lengthening of shadows to guide our decision making in everything from when to plant vegetables, to when to propose marriage.

In our modern day lifestyle, we live our lives very disconnected from nature. Seasons come and go, and we hardly notice the changes, cocooned in our temperature regulated environments. Food no longer comes from last seasons planned planting, but is neatly packaged at the local supermarket for our last-minute convenience.
Both are perfect examples of our great sophistication, our triumph over the capriciousness of life, and our ability to design our landscape to suit us. But what happened to working with nature? Good design has to be more than imposing our will on our environment, surely its got to include a harmonious relationship with the landscape.

I'm far from being ready to return to an agrarian existence, and finding ways to keep chickens in my 3rd floor apartment - as much as my cat would argue for the perfect logic of that decision. Nor do I plan on basing my decisions on the changing seasons, when science can give such exact information. But I just wonder if the repercussions of this basic disconnection are more insidious and far-reaching than we imagine.

The Answer is Blowing in the Wind

Ok, I'm not holding out for my Nobel Prize, but I have got this roof gardening thing down to a simple, easy to use formula. Here it is, but remember, you saw it here first:

roof garden + high winds = hard, scary work

Throw in the fact that even though the artificial grass we were laying weighs nearly one and a half tons, and was being lifted by the wind as if it was a pancake being flipped on a teflon pan, and the fact that there is no real service elevator to get the couple of tons of materials up onto the roof of the 10 storey building...well lets just say my calf muscles would now give Usain Bolt a run for his money.

Anyone Have Any Garden Maintenance Advice?

As part of our business, we provide a regular garden care service to many clients around the Durban area. We care for our gardens on a regular basis - mainly on a weekly or 2 weekly cycle.

For years we have struggled with finding a solution to the complications to our schedule created by not being able to work in heavy rain. Fortunately this is not much of a problem in our dry winter, but summer is just around the corner, and soon we'll be having our usual summer rains.

Sunny Durban in winter

Missing a day because of rain isn't too big a deal especially for our weekly clients - the garden still looks reasonably good. But missing 2 services in a row for fortnightly clients results in a gap of nearly a month between services. With the growth that we experience in summer, you'd be lucky to find your way to the front door through your garden.

I would love to find a solution that would make our clients happy, but would also not require us having to constantly play catch-up.

Any ideas or advice?