Plant indigenous trees – Lavender Tree
Lindsay Gray on behalf of Hillcrest Conservancy will produce weekly articles regarding the various indigenous small trees that you can plant in your garden.
ONE of our most useful indigenous trees is the lavender tree, Heteropyxis natalensis.
The Afrikaans name for this tree is laventelboom and Inkunzi in Zulu.
This tree is one of my favourites, not because of showy flowers but because of its versatility as a garden specimen.
It grows quickly and suits a small or large garden. The tree grows sufficiently tall to provide privacy from an elevated residence or building, with its light canopy providing comfortable, as opposed to oppressive, shade.
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Nestled in your garden, this tree is an insect magnet, attracting bees, wasps and butterflies to its inconspicuous but sweetly scented flowers that occur from December to March.
Insectivorous birds are also attracted to the tree to feed off visiting insects.
Both flower and foliage emits a pleasant lavender scent when lightly crushed.
The stem of this tree has an interesting pale grey to creamy-white bark that flakes as the tree ages, and is similar to that of the exotic silver birch, Betula alba, which is renowned for its beautiful silver-grey bark.
In its natural habitat, the lavender tree is most often multi-stemmed, however, you can restrict it to a single stem by thumb-pruning any new growth on the lower trunk with the result that you can plant it as a stately single specimen or focal point, create an elegant avenue-style planting or in groups to show off the beautiful trunks.
The glossy foliage is a mid-green with a lighter underside and a pronounced curve to each leaf.
The leaves turn a rich-red hue in autumn and the tree loses a good percentage of its foliage in winter in cooler areas.
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The root system of the lavender tree is not aggressive.
Heteropyxis natalensis occurs naturally on the coastal and inland regions of KwaZulu-Natal.
You will also find it growing in Gauteng, Mpumalanga, Swaziland and Zimbabwe.
The tree prefers full sun but will tolerate a little shade.
Contact the Hillcrest Conservancy chairman, George Victor, on 073 901 3902, e-mail georgevic@telkomsa.net or the website www.hillcrestconservancy.co.za or contact Lindsay Gray at info@schoolofgardendesign.com
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