Plumstead Community Gardens
© George Birch (None)
Corridor contribution
- To support planting of primarily locally indigenous vegetation (note: we don't expect the garden to currently be there, but the caretaker is willing to work toward this goal).
- To work on removing alien and invasive species.
- To periodically provide updates on the status of the garden.
- When possible, to share seeds or cuttings from the garden's indigenous plants with other members of our network.
This is garden ID pending in our corridor.
Description
Plumstead Community Gardens consisted of 3 sites which was established June 2020. Since then we have slowly developed the sites but due to poor lack of community support we have only proceded with 2 sites: Crn Whitbey and Thronwicks road, cnr of Vernon Road and Gabriel road.
The gardens are very sparse (I imagned large fynbos gardens initially) and based around pathways following existing routes.
The plants have been donated from Kirstenbosch initially, then with funding we bought some and I have also been propagating some of the plants. The goal has been locally indigenous as far a possible, but I have used plants that did well on the site and fitted in with the aesthetic.
These sites are open to the public and unfortunately we cant really invest in these spaces (homeless people dump rubbish and also use intermittently as toilets and the fact that it belongs to national government so support is difficult) as in some other better managed areas. Our pathways were made with cardboard and thick layers of wood chips about 2 years ago but these have regressed. No other hard landscaping.
The list of plants are as follows:
Arctotis stoechadifolia
Athanasia crithmifolia
Chrysocoma coma-aurea
Eriocephalus africanus
Helichrysum cymosum
Metalasia densa
osteospermum white, purple
Osteospermum moniliferum, chrysanthemoides
Salvia africana-lutea/ S aurea (golden/brown/dune sage)
Salvia africana-cerulea/ S africana (blou sage)
Salvia chameliangia (rough blue)
Gazania rigens
Scabiosa africana
Coleonema pulchellum/alba
selago purple turtle
Tacoma Capensis (yellow and orange)
dietes grandiflora
Podocarpus trees
Plectranthus ecklonii
euyrops
Bronze and green fennel
Rosemary
thyme
Argyrhanthemum spp
watsonias
salvia amistad
plectranhus neochilus
The goal is to use space to improve appearance but we wanted to do this by improving biodiversity, ie locally indigenous as far as possible. Before this I wanted to be involved with food gardens but as single person this proved very difficult (red tape local government), so when I started fynbos I added rosemary, fennel and thyme.
If I had resources I would want to go towards original cape flats sand fynbos but using what I have. And also its national government sites so no long term guarantees (that being said the saites have been open since the 1960's).
These are public sites so access to all, include vandals, homeless people dumping rubbish and ablutions, workers and local people. Site def gets used. :)
The 2 sites coordinates: -34.015827, 18.463503 ; -34.015317, 18.461729
Registered current species
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