Plant indigenous trees

HIGHWAY Mail’s Know your alien invasive plant column has come to an end, however due to the number of requests from the community for a column about indigenous plants, plant enthusiast Lindsay Gray will be writing a new column on behalf of the Hillcrest Conservancy to help keep readers informed about local flora for their gardens.

Small trees for the garden

This week, we take a look at another delightful small indigenous tree that is well suited to courtyards, small properties or in a woodland section of a large property.

Calpurneaaurea grows to around 4 metres in height by 3 – 3,5 metres in width.

It has a lovely open canopy and casts a dappled shade that is wonderful to sit under while enjoying your garden.

Hanging bunches of the prettiest yellow pea-flowers festoon the tree at various times throughout the year.

Most of these trees in our area are currently flowering, which is a little early but is possibly due to the warm winter we have recently experienced.

This tree can sometimes be multi-stemmed so, if you would like to grow it as a single-stemmed tree, choose one with a strong single stem at the time of purchase.

Any unwanted growth on the stem can be nipped off (not cut, otherwise it will grow again) as it appears.

Calpurneaaurea does well in our area as the distribution of this plant runs from the Eastern Cape northwards into Ethiopia.

It grows in forest and on forest margins where it naturally grows taller due to its need to stretch for the light. In open bushveld areas and on hillsides, the tree exhibits the same size that it usually attains in our gardens.

Pollinators are attracted to the flower, especially the carpenter bee that also enjoys the flowers of the pretty shrub, Polygala myrtifolia.

If you have dassies on your property you might want to plant this small tree below a rocky outcrop so that the dassiescan use the rocks to reach the flower buds which they so enjoy.

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 on her website, www.schoolofgardendesign.com

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