May is Africa month with African Day on 25 May. We will also celebrate World Bee Day on 20 May and then International Day for Biodiversity on 22 May. Moms are also in the spotlight this month for Mother’s Day on 9 May.
With so many festivities, let’s revel in our African sunshine and plant some spectacular indigenous seeds and bulbs.
Ideas for Mother’s Day gifts from the garden
For children of all ages: Moms love flowers, especially the hand-picked kind. If you have any of the following good cut-flowers blooming in your garden, they would be perfect as your Mother’s Day gift bouquet:
Tall flowering dianthus, carnations, snapdragons, larkspur, alstroemeria or sunflowers. If you don’t have these in the garden, you could always buy a few plants from your local nursery.
The plants and their flowers will last for a long time – possibly until next year and then they’ll be ready for picking again.
Hot Tip: Pittosporum branches, leather leaf ferns, aspidistra leaves and a variety of other plants, like those in Autumn berry, such as the pyracantha can be added to your bunch of flowers too.
For the older children and dads: Our indigenous wild banana plants (Strelitzia nicolai) are trendy additions to the new leafy-look, ideal in high light areas indoors, or as pretty patio plants. This plant is a stunner and even more so when planted in a lovely pot.
Make sure mom stays modern and get her some wild bananas.
Edibles
What would sausage and mash be without peas? Peas are also one of the few veggies that children enjoy eating, especially when combined with corn.
If you love peas, you will love fresh, home-grown peas even more. They are so easy to grow from seed or seedling. Offer the climbing peas a variety of support to climb up, plant with compost, feed regularly, and there you have your own home-grown peas.
Hot Tip: Peas are loaded with antioxidants and anti-inflammatory nutrients, including vitamin C and E.
Sow
Some of the best seeds that can be sown are indigenous beauties, which honour our African heritage with a parade of colourful flowers, like gazanias, livingstone daisies (Mesembryanthemum), scabious africana (the indigenous cape scabious or pincushion), and namaqualand daisies (also called African daisies).
May is also a good time to sow calendulas. Their perky orange and yellow flowers are great in plant borders and their edible flowers also make them a winner in the herb and veggie garden.
The month of May is an ideal time to sow shade grass and cool season seeds. They can provide the following solutions and more:
- Shade grass can be sown into your existing lawn during winter. This is called over-seeding, which helps your lawn look green and healthy in the winter. Sowing shade grass can also be used to fill patches in an existing lawn.
- Several different shade lawns can be sown. These are often available as both coarse and fine leaf lawns and some can even withstand tough wear such as areas where dogs like to run.
- Evergreen lawn seed is available for planting as a new lawn too.
Plant African bulbs in Africa month
There are beautiful indigenous bulbs that rival the ranunculus, daffodils and hyacinths, especially once you take the time to get to know them.
Sparaxis or harlequin flowers prefer well-drained, composted soil in the sun or partial shade. Striking flowers that are often marked with a contrasting colour in their centre are good cut-flowers. These plants do well in the garden but are also excellent container plants.
Tritonia, also called blazing stars, offer a lovely range of spring-flowering colours – from bright orange to salmon, cream and white and are also great cut-flowers. Make sure that you plant them in very well-drained soil, positioned in the sun or in semi-shade.
Lachenalias have cheeky and brightly colourful hyacinth-like flowers. Most hybrids have sweetly scented flowers that start flowering in winter. Good drainage is essential, so add some sand to poorly drained soil to increase the drainage. Their flowers are also great in vases.
Hot Tip: Don’t complete your bulb shopping before you’ve purchased bulb food.
Before you go, take a peek at the following other indigenous bulbs that are really something special and worth looking at:
- Babiana or baboon flowers are the cutest little plants with attractive hairy leaves and fragrant flowers.
- Freesias which are fragrant and colourful are great in containers and are very pretty cut-flowers.
- Ornithogalum or chincherinchees have attractive white or green-white fragrant flowers, which are exceedingly long-lasting cut-flowers.
- Ixia’sstar-shaped flowers produce a riot of colour in spring, flourishing in a sunny or semi-shaded bed or container, especially when mass planted.
DID YOU KNOW?
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