IndigeNews
September 2023
Witkoppen Wildflower Nursery’s last newsletter
Hello Friends and Plant Lovers,
This is the last edition of Witkoppen Wildflower Nursery’s Newsletter, IndigeNews.
It is time for me to say farewell to the nursery and our wonderful clients and friends. Thank you all for your support, encouragement and friendship over the years. Monica and I are very grateful to you all.
The nursery will continue as an indigenous nursery “The Olievenhout Farm, Wildflower & Indigenous Plants Nursery”. Some of the key staff from Witkoppen Wildflower including Calvin and Gloria are part of the new nursery, as is all of Witkoppen’s plant stock. Rami, the new owner, is continuing with the 30% discount offer on all plants for the moment. Please support this new venture and our staff that have stayed on.
I am starting a new venture, making bird nesting boxes that can soon be ordered online from a new website, Wild Bird Nesting Boxes. We will be building quality, specialized boxes for Hornbills, Barbets, Wrynecks, Hoopoes and other cavity nesting birds and for Owls. I have had a very good ‘occupancy’ rate with the nesting boxes in our garden with Grey Hornbills, Black and Crested Barbets, African Hoopoes and Green Woodhoopoes and Red-throated Wrynecks all successfully raising chicks in boxes built specially for them.
My new email address is malcolm@wildbirdnestingboxes.co.za and the address is live. Please contact me if you would like to stay in touch or are interested in getting a nesting box or our newsletters.
As always, enjoy this season of renewal in your garden.
Best wishes and Happy Indigenous Gardening,
Malcolm
The origins of Witkoppen Wildflower Nursery.
Not too many people know that this nursery was started 64 years ago, or why it was started.
In the 1950’s Bea Thompson and her husband and 2 young boys moved into their new home on a plot on the old Witkoppen farm. Not long after that Bea’s husband suffered a stroke and was admited to hospital. In those days that meant the end of the families income. Bea was trying to establish an indigenous garden and was struggling to source indigenous garden plants in Johannesburg and surrounding areas. She realized that anybody else wanting an indigenous garden was having the same problems, and to fill the niche she started Witkoppen Wild Flower Nursery. The nursery opened in 1959.
Bea was always quick to say that it was Sima Eliovson’s pioneer book, “Wild Flowers of Southern Africa, How to Grow and Identify Them” that was first published in 1955, that motivated her decision to start the Nursery. It is a good book and copies of its 6 editions can still be found in 2nd hand bookshops.
Bea was an amazing person. I was always impressed by her knowledge of our indigenous plants. She was a very shy and introverted person, but had the courage to start a business where she had to interact with the public. Bea would ask customers where they were going to plant the plants they wanted to purchase, and then would not sell the plants she felt would not survive in their new homes. She did not like to have her photograph be taken.
Bea Thompson. This picture was taken with Andrea Hepplewhite, her business partner, and a horticultural student, Janet Woeber, for an article published in 1989 in the Garden and Home magazine. Bea had to be cohersed by Andrea to pose for the picture, and we cropped the picture to only show Bea.
Each month we select 15 plants that we sell at much discounted prices for that month.
The Pink Confetti Bush or Aasbossie (Coleonema pulchellum) is one of the plants selected for April. Click on the above picture to see the full list with a short description of each plant.
The Redwing or Rooivlerk (Pterolobum stellatum) is one of the plants selected for May’s specials. Click on the above picture to see the full list with a short description of each plant.
Tree Identification Course
We are running the last of these courses for this season from the evening of Friday, 12 May and lunch time on Sunday 14 May.
There are still a few places available on this practical, hands-on course on how to identify southern African indigenous trees. Students will identify approximately 50 indigenous tree during the course.
Click on the picture of the tree on the left to get all the details.
Hedgehog Sage or Ystervarksalie (Coleus livingstonei)
We have reworked our plant blog about this beautiful garden shrub. We did a blog about this plant while it was still known a Pyncnostachys urticifolia. In 2019 botanists realised that it was incorrectly classified and moved it into a revived genus Coleus. Unfortunately, there was already a species called Coleus urticifolia. So they named it in honour of David Livingstone, the explorer and missionary, who collected seeds of this plant in what is today Malawi and sent them to Kew.
Click on the picture on the right to see the blog.
The flower spike of the Hedgehog Sage or Ystervarksalie.
Thank you for reading this newsletter, and we hope you have found it interesting and entertaining, We are using technology that is new to us and trust that it works. Please let us know what you think.
Till the next issue, enjoy your garden and gardening.
Stay safe.
Regards,
The Witkoppen Wildflower Team
© Malcolm Dee Hepplewhite & Witkoppen Wildflower Nursery, (Text and Photographs) 2023.
Contact Details:
363 Valley Road, North Riding, (Below the Northgate Dome)
PO Box 3249, North Riding, 2162
Tel: 011 516 0262 Cel: 082 900 8324
Email: malcolm@witkoppenwildflower.co.za Web site: WitkoppenWildflower.co.za