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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SOME INDIGENOUS VEGETATION

While much of South Africa is covered in grassland, pockets of natural forest survive, such as this one clinging to the steep sides of a gorge.

Succulents such as this Haworthia reinwardtii are rewarding to come across whilst walking in the veld.

Patches of pink brighten up indigenous forests – and our garden – when the Dais cotonifolia are in bloom.

The Cape Honeysuckle is coming into bloom now.

Aloes are also coming into bloom and will brighten up the autumn and winter landscape before long.

The Eastern Cape is home to the Spekboom (Portulacaria Afra), a hardy succulent favoured by elephants and a wonderful garden plant.

GARDEN JULY 2022

How blessed we are to have indigenous flowers blooming in our garden during the middle of winter! Even though the aloes are nearly over, they still attract interesting visitors such as Green Woodhoopoes:

The hedge of Crassula ovata at one end of the swimming pool is covered with flowers that are abuzz with bees and other insects:

I look forward to this time of the year when the scarlet blooms of the Erythrina caffra provide a beautiful contrast against the brilliant blue sky. Birds visiting them include Cape Weavers, Village Weavers, Southern Masked Weavers, Cape White-eyes, Common Starlings, Redwinged Starlings, Greyheaded Sparrows, African Hoopoes, African Green Pigeons, Black-headed Orioles, and even Cape Crows:

The Canary Creepers continue to provide the odd splash of bright yellow:

While the orange Cape Honeysuckle is beginning to make a show too:

MY JUNE 2022 GARDEN

It is at this time of the year that the Cape Honeysuckle puts on a fine show of cheerful bright orange flowers so beloved by sunbirds, weavers, Cape White-eyes, bees and butterflies.

Aloes vie for space among the crassulas plants edging our swimming pool. They too provide cheer and attract the Greater Double-collared sunbirds, weavers, Black-headed orioles, and Black-eyed Bulbuls as well as bees and ants.

The Spekboom growing in various places in the garden does not mind either the icy weather or the drought.

A large flock of Red-winged Starlings visit the fig tree daily and often perch in the top branches of the Erythrina caffra to catch the early morning sun. These trees are now devoid of all but the hardiest of leaves and are covered in clusters of black seed pods that have split open to reveal the scarlet ‘lucky beans’ inside. Flower buds are making their spiky appearance, so before long the trees will look resplendent in their scarlet blooms.

A Black-headed Oriole perches in one of the many Pompon trees that are rapidly losing their leaves. The formerly beautiful pink blossoms now look like miniature floor mops that have been hung out to dry.

A male Garden Inspector / Garden Commodore (Precis archesia archesia) sees what the Canary Creeper flowers have to offer. We have seen very few butterflies in our garden so far.

TECOMA CAPENSIS

While still on the subject of flowers, I want to draw attention again to the blaze of orange trumpet-like flowers that brighten the garden and the veld from the end of summer into spring, with autumn being the best time for flowers, which look particularly beautiful when highlighted by the bright sunshine.

Commonly known as the Cape Honeysuckle, Tecoma capensis is drought-resistant and – certainly in my area – enjoys rampant growth periods. So rampant in fact that I have to be vigilant about cutting it back or it would take over whole sections of our garden. In some gardens it has been trimmed to form dense hedges. Alas, I lack the ability to do that and so it grows ‘free-form’ in my garden – trimmed roughly to keep it in check – where it forms a screen from neighbours, from the road below, and provides ample nectar for birds and insects. One has to keep an eye on it though for over the years it forms a hard woody stem that is difficult to cut.

Tecoma capensis is indigenous to South Africa. It occurs naturally in Limpopo, Mpumalanga, KwaZulu-Natal and the Eastern Cape.