African project
Nelson Mandela Children’s Hospital landscaping – South Africa
Plant material sourcing for
hospital
Gail Dreyer of Tshala Plant Brokers spoke about the commercial availability
of South African indigenous plant species, saying that there were many more
growers becoming aware of the escalating demand for more unusual indigenous
species, particularly within the landscaping industry. The value of indigenous
species is being recognised.
Tshala Plant Brokers sourced all the plant material for the Nelson Mandela
Children’s Hospital, saying that there were some plants on the plant list that were
challenging to find but that Dreyer had called on her ‘mentors’ in the indigenous
nursery industry for suggestions of alternatives, in cases when there were not
enough plants in stock at nurseries or an unusual species could not be found. She
remarked that there were not that many plants that proved to be impossible to
find, once she had called on her vast network of large and small specialist growers,
nationwide, as Dr Erika van den Berg’s list had been obtained in advance.
She said the people she could rely on for suggestions of alternatives, along with
Annamari Comrie of GREENinc Landscape Architects and Ida-Marie Strydom of
Life Landscapes, were the remarkable growers that had been in the indigenous
plant industry for a lengthy period: such as, Mandy Fick, Linda De Luca, Dr
Johan Wentzel, Gretchen Grenville and Lucy Drake. The ideal is that nurseries
should have enough time to grow-on species that are required for projects, when
necessary. If there is contract growing required, the list should be available well
in advance so that the seed can be sourced at the right time and the plants reach a
reasonable size.
“Those plants that were not available at the time the order was placed for the
hospital could, fortunately, be supplied to the hospital at a later stage, as the
planting was done in pockets: plants such as the Phygelius spp, commonly known
as River Bells or Wild Fuschias. Aside from the latter marginal species, which was
utilised in the main stormwater grassland swale, the water plants were not difficult
to source as they were not required in large quantities. “We have a few excellent
water plant nurseries that have a good variety of indigenous aquatic and marginal
plants. We sourced plants for the water features such as Kniphofia fluviatilis (River
Poker), Crinum campanulatum (Vlei Lily), Cyrtanthus breviflorus (Yellow Fire Lily),
Aponogeton distachyos (Waterblommetjie), and Spiloxene aquatica (Watersterretjie) –
something which we had not been asked to source, previously,” Dreyer related.
She said that some of the Osteospermum and Alstroemeria (exotic) spp that were
unavailable at the time of installation were substituted by appropriate alternatives;
along with specific Plumbago and Agapanthus cultivars which had to be replaced
with the more common cultivars or natural species, matching the colours as
closely as possible to those requested on the plant list.
Dreyer concluded that there was a marked increase in availability of South African
indigenous species that had not previously been grown for the commercial
market.
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