GROWING INDIGENOUS PLANTS FOR BIRDS

Some visitors are very quiet when they enter my garden. I can imagine their suppressed horror and their hands itching to clear it. They might venture something along the lines of “Your trees are so green” and happily move indoors. Others exclaim with delight and say something along the lines of “I hope we’re going to have tea outdoors.” I enjoy the latter.

Of course there are a myriad commonly planted flowers that not only look beautiful, but are attractive to a variety of pollinators. Years of drought cycles have taught me the harsh lesson about the amount of water required to keep flowerbeds looking attractive year-round. Indigenous plants, on the other hand, may not be as ‘showy’, yet they have consistently proved to be hardier and require a lot less water.

We all know that the availability of water is an important factor when gardening. For me shade (our summers get very hot), privacy, pollinators, and especially attracting birds have been priority guiding factors in my gardening endeavours – another is that I get by with very little assistance.

On with indigenous plants that birds also enjoy.

Aloes may look drab to some for much of the year. I enjoy their various shapes and spiky leaves. When they are ablaze with colour during the winter, however, it is difficult not to admire them.

Their nectar-rich flowers emerge at the time of year when food is more difficult to find. Apart from insects, a host of birds are attracted to the flowers. These include weavers, Cape White-eyes, sunbirds, and Blackheaded Orioles.

Our garden is too large for one person to handle comfortably and so, since our arrival, I set the bottom terrace aside as a ‘wild’ garden. I call it my ‘Secret Garden’ and – other than clearing a path through it once a year – let it be. This section is dominated by an enormous Natal fig that attracts African Green Pigeons, Knysna Turacos, Redwinged Starlings, Speckled Mousebirds, Black-collared Barbets, Blackeyed Bulbuls, Paradise Flycatchers, Redeyed Doves, Hadeda Ibises, and Grey Sparrows, to mention a few. We have planted many other indigenous trees over the decades, which have now matured and provide both food and shelter. Clivias also abound in this garden.

As you can imagine, the leaf litter here is thick and spongy underfoot. It is regularly raked over by Olive Thrushes and Cape Robin-chats. Red-necked Spurfowl comb through it as do pigeons and doves. I strongly suspect a Fiery-necked Nightjar has found refuge there too. Wood from dead exotic trees has been left to rot: providing a home for insects and food for Cardinal Woodpeckers and Green Woodhoopoes.

You could accurately describe my garden as ‘wild and woolly’ – many regard it as being unkempt. I love it: I garden for birds and my monthly bird lists prove that a wide variety of avian visitors do too. Some indigenous plants, such as the Cape Honeysuckle and Canary Creepers, are rampant growers that need to be kept in check by pruning once they have flowered. Both provide a rich supply of nectar that attracts a variety of bird, bees, butterflies and other insects. Here is a Cape Honeysuckle:

This is a small sprig of canary creeper:

The indigenous Plumbago not only produces beautiful blue blossoms that attract various pollinators, but the thickly tangled stems are ideal nesting spots for Cape Wagtails, Cape Robin-chats and Cape White-eyes. Plumbago also needs regular pruning to keep it in check.

Large Erythrina caffra trees dominate our back garden. Apart from hosting Hadeda Ibises at night, their bounty of lichen-covered branches, seasonal leaves, seeds and beautiful scarlet blossoms attract a host of birds such as weavers, Cape Crows, African Hoopoes, Fork-tailed Drongos, African Green Pigeons, Speckled Mousebirds and Green Woodhoopoes.

A similar variety of birds are attracted to the Crossberries that have seeded themselves all over the garden as well as this Puzzle Bush at our back gate.

They also enjoy the Dais cotonifolia trees – some planted and others self-seeded.

The very beautiful Cape Chestnut tree we planted about thirty years ago attracts a variety of pollinators and birds too.

Birds and indigenous plants go hand-in-hand and are a recipe for tranquillity and joy – whatever the season!

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CAPE CHESTNUT II

This is the time of year when we revel in the beautiful blossoms of the Cape Chestnut (Calodendrum capense) trees that are popular street trees in our town. These are ones growing along the extension of the street where we live. They are not as tall as one would expect them to be in their natural environment.

There is a magnificent specimen in our garden, which has had to compete with the other trees for light and space and so has grown beautifully tall over the years.

Apart from the elegant shape of these trees, it is their large heads of beautiful pink flowers that attract attention.

The flowers have five characteristic light red sterile stamens that resemble petals, with purplish gland dots.

These trees grow naturally in forests from the south-western Cape, along the eastern coast and through to parts of Mpumalanga. They are lovely shade trees as, here anyway, they are evergreen. The slightly glossy leaves have a clearly defined mid-rib and the veins can be clearly seen on the underside of the leaves. Another characteristic is the presence of oil glands on the leaves, visible as tiny translucent dots when held up to the light. When crushed, the leaves exude a faint lemony smell.

The bark is an attractive mottled streaky grey. In our garden it is also covered with lichen.

References:

https://pza.sanbi.org/calodendrum-capense

Pienaar Kristo. Gardening with Indigenous Plants. Struik Timmins Publishers. Cape Town 1991.

Van der Spuy Una. South African Shrubs & Trees for the Garden. Hugh Keartland Publishers. Johannesburg 1976.

Van Wyk Braam and Van Wyk Piet. Field Guide to Trees of Southern Africa. Struik Nature. Cape Town 2013.

NOVEMBER 2021 GARDEN

I am pleased to report that my garden today is wet. Yes, really: it is wet, wet, wet and although the rain has made way for the sun, leaves are dripping – some are even weighing down the branches with the weight of rain. This is a sight for sore eyes – 28mm of rain!

Rain means mud and mud means that the Lesser-striped Swallows can proceed with their urgent task of constructing their mud nest under the eaves.

A Hadeda Ibis chick balances on the edge of the precarious nest in the back garden.

While a beautiful nest woven by an excited Southern Masked Weaver bobs up and down with no tenants – it was obviously not deemed to be good enough when the female inspected it!

My teeny weeny patch of flowers has got a new lease of life – just when I thought it was soon going to revert to being a bare patch of ground.

A very old hibiscus has come into bloom.

So has the indigenous Plumbago.

A matter of weeks ago I thought I would have to remove the Christ thorns lining the front path.

All over the garden the Crossberries are coming into bloom.

As is the very beautiful Cape Chestnut tree.

CAPE CHESTNUT

Among the most beautiful indigenous trees in our garden is the Cape Chestnut (Calodendrum capense), which we planted at least twenty years ago. It is known as Kaapsekastaiing in Afrikaans. This particular tree has grown tall and is shapely – pleasing to the eye throughout the year.

The tree is so tall now that the delicately scented blossoms on the canopy are best observed from an upstairs window.

They are particularly abundant this summer.

I am delighted for I find them very attractive.

These magnificent flowers are rather photogenic!

The flowers each have five long pale pink petals, alternating with five pink petal-like staminodes dotted with purplish to maroon glands.

THREE FLOWERING TREES

The drought may have robbed us of a fine display of wild spring and summer flowers in the veld, yet there are some indigenous trees that have defied all odds to produce beautiful blooms. The first are some lovely specimens of Virgilia oroboides, commonly known as the Keurboom (tree of choice). Several growing along the lower slopes of the hills around Grahamstown are covered with beautiful, sweetly scented, sweet-pea-like flowers in dense terminal sprays that are proving attractive to bees and butterflies in great numbers.

Although the Cape Chestnut (Calodendrum capense) in our garden is completely out of kilter with the seasons, there are some lovely specimens blooming along the street not far from where I live. Their pink canopies of flowers are a beautiful sight.

Further afield, in the Addo Elephant National Park, one’s attention is drawn away from the bare ground by the bright red flowers of the Huilboerboon trees (Schotia brachypetala).

Also known as a Tree Fuschia, these trees are sporting clusters of nectar-filled flowers that attract insects as well as birds. I have seen beautiful specimens of these trees growing in gardens. In the Addo Elephant National Park, however, they tend to be straggly and stunted with very gnarled trunks, thanks to being browsed by game.