Restoring Meadowridge Common

The Friends of Meadowridge Common will be hosting a talk on Monday 11 November 2019 in the Meadowridge Library Hall, Howard Drive at 19h30.
Dr Charmaine Oxtoby, City of Cape Town's Biophysical Specialist, will be talking on Restoring the north-western corner of Meadowridge Common Conservation Area using an ecological burn. This conservation management project, planned for early 2020, is a collaboration between the Friends of Meadowridge Common, SANBI and the City of Cape Town Recreation & Parks Dept and Biodiversity Management Branch.
Secure parking is available at the library.
Refreshments will be served.
All welcome.
For more information, please contact the Chairman of the Friends, Roger Graham, on 021 715 9206.

Guilt-free gardening

Cherise Viljoen’s suggestions on how to garden in the drought and how to recognize a plant that is designed by nature to survive our long hot summer climate (wind, lack of water, harsh sun)

Choose slower growing, more long lived, hardier evergreens and try avoid soft, thirsty annuals & perennials

Select those plants naturally geared to survive drought:
 - silver, grey foliage: reflects the heat
 - upright, narrow, small leaves or no leaves at all: all if which reduces contact with the hot sun and so stay cooler- reducing their water-loss though evaporation
 - hairy, waxy, firm-structured, aromatic: all designed to also reduce water-loss from the plant
 - succulent: have their own reservoirs of water supply
 - have more underground plant parts and storage organs- like bulbs: Hide from the sun and wind and so reduce water-loss
 - deciduous in summer: grow when the weather is cooler and wetter, sleep when conditions are unfavourable

Talk on Drought Gardening

Cherise Viljoen, Senior Horticulturist at Kirstenbosch and Manager of the Kirstenbosch Wholesale Nursery, will be giving a talk on Drought Gardening at the AGM of the Friends of Meadowridge Common. Well-known for her gardening advice show on Cape Talk radio, a talk by Cherise is not to be missed! Join the Friends to find out how to make a fabulous waterwise garden.

The AGM is on Monday 25 February at 19h30 in the Meadowridge Library, Howard Drive, Meadowridge. Everyone is welcome – and Cherise is willing to answer drought-related gardening queries. There is secure parking, and tea and cake is served afterwards. For more information, please contact Roger Graham, Chairperson of the Friends on 021 715 9206, or visit their webpage at http://meadowridgecommon.blogspot.com/.

Save the date ...

 

For the love of Wild Bees is the subject of our next talk on Monday 29 October 2018 at 7h30 pm  in the Meadowridge Library, Howard Drive, Meadowridge (click here for Google map directions). Our speaker is Jenny Cullinan of the Wild Bee Research Group (see their web page here, as well as their Facebook Page). Jenny will speak about the important role bees play as a keystone species in the fynbos region and why we need to protect all of our wild bees. She will show the amazing world of bees and, of course, their beautiful fit with flowers. Jenny has just returned from a conference in the The Netherlands and as this will be her first talk since returning, we will hear all about what is happening in this field oversees.

For more information, please contact Roger Graham, Chairman of the Friends, at 021 715 9206 or email us at Meadowridgefriend@gmail.com.

Entry is free, everyone is welcome, and safe parking is provided. Tea, coffee and cakes will be provided.

Discover Namibia's Kaokoveld



The Friends of Meadowridge Common invite you on a photographic safari to the Kaokoveld of Namibia with Michael Borgström, architect, artist and experienced traveller to Africa's wild places. Michael's illustrated talk will take place in the Meadowridge Library, Howard Drive, Meadowridge (click here for a map) at 7h30 pm on Wednesday 23 November 2016. Entrance is free. Refreshments will be served afterwards, and there will be secure parking.

Talk on Fire

The Friends of Meadowridge Common are hosting an illustrated talk on Monday 16 November 2015 on Fire and Fynbos with particular reference to the Cape Peninsula fires in March this year. The speaker is Dalton Gibbs, Regional Manager South, Biodiversity Management Branch of the Environmental Resource Management Department of the City of Cape Town. Included in the programme is a short film by Dalton Gibbs. The venue is the Meadowridge Library, Howard Drive, Meadowridge and the time is 7h30. Entrance is free and all welcome. Secure parking and refreshments will be available.
How to get there: http://meadowridgecommon.blogspot.co.za/p/find-us.html.
For more information, please contact Fiona Watson at 021 712 0696 or email the Friends at Meadowridgefriend@gmail.com.

How you can join the CREW and learn more about our rare and endangered plants

The Friends of Meadowridge Common will be holding their AGM for 2015 on Wednesday 25 February in the community hall of the Meadowridge Library (click here for map) at 7h30 pm. The guest speaker will be Ismail Ebrahim of the South African National Biodiversity Institute's Custodians of Rare and Endangered Wildflowers (CREW) programme. CREW involves volunteers from the public in the monitoring and conservation of South Africa's threatened plants. Anyone can get involved - and CREW provides general plant identification courses as well as field training - so come along to the AGM and find out more. The programme is a partnership between SANBI and the Botanical Society of South Africa (BotSoc). For more information on CREW, click here.

Meadowridge Common has many of its own rare and endangered plants, and Fiona Watson, the Friend's Botanical Officer, will also be giving an update on the flora of Meadowridge Common.

Refreshments will be served and secure parking provided.

Please phone Fiona Watson at 021 712 0696 for more information.   

The Flats Silkypuff, (Diastella proteoides) on Meadowridge Common. This species was probably common and widespread, but it is now restricted to a few remnant patches of lowland fynbos. See Red List.

Birds of the Okavango

The AGM of the Friends of Meadowridge Common will be held on Wednesday 26 February 2014
at the Meadowridge Library, at 7.30 p.m. 
The meeting will conclude with a talk by renowned photographer (and concert pianist) Sybil Morris on Birds of the Okavango. Sybil has an extensive knowledge of birds and has won awards for her photographs, which she will be using to illustrate her talk.
Refreshments and secure parking will be provided. Everyone is welcome and the talk is free of charge.
For directions on how to get here, click here. 
For further information, please phone Fiona Watson at 021 712 0696. 
 

Spring is in the air

and The Friends have two events lined up:

To whom does Rondebosch Common belong?

A talk by Joanne Eastman of the Friends of Rondebosch Common that explores the claims of various groups to Rondebosch Common from the early Khoi, through the military, the City Council to the local community, and looks at its impressive floral diversity. The talk is hosted by the Friends of Meadowridge Common. The event is free, and refreshments will be served afterwards. Secure parking is provided.

When: Wednesday 11 September at 19h30.

Where: Meadowridge Library, opposite the Meadowridge Shopping Centre, Howard Drive, Meadowridge. Click here for a map.

Contact: Fiona Watson at 021 712 0696.

 

and the much anticipated  

Spring Walk on Meadowridge Common

Every September the Friends of Meadowridge Common have a Spring Walk to update the community as to what progress has been made on the common, and to look for spring flowers. See their facebook page too.

When: Saturday 14 September at 12h30

Where: Meet on the gravel road to the Sports Club, off Faraday Way, Meadowridge.

Click here for a map.

Contact: Fiona Watson at 021 712 0696

For more information on the flowers that you may see on the walks, click here.

 

Kirstenbosch: 100 years and still blooming

The AGM of the Friends of Meadowridge Common will be held on Wednesday 27 February
at the Meadowridge Library, at 7.30 p.m. 

The meeting will conclude with a presentation by Olwen Gibson, one of Kirstenbosch's Garden Guides, on the Kirstenbosch Centenary which takes place this year. Olwen will take us on a “virtual walk” through Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden to find out how an abandoned farm in 1913 became one of the top botanical gardens in the world one hundred years later.
Refreshments and secure parking will be provided. Everyone is welcome.
For directions on how to get here, click here. 


Kirstenbosch in 1913: a dilapidated farm. Photo: The Elliott Collection. 

 

The same view today. Photo: Alice Notten.

The Lost Fynbos of Tokai Park

This is the subject of a talk by Tony Rebelo of the Threatened Species Research Unit of the South African National Biodiversity Institute (SANBI) at Kirstenbosch. The restoration of Tokai represents one of our last opportunities to link ecological processes from the top of Table Mountain to the lowlands of the Cape Flats. It is also one of the last places where we still have a chance to rehabilitate a sustainable area of critically endangered Cape Flats Sand Fynbos.
Join the Friends of Meadowridge Common (custodians of a small remnant of Cape Flats Sand Fynbos) to hear Tony, an expert in this field and one of South Africa’s top scientists, explain why this is such an important project.

Date: Wednesday 12 September 2012
Venue: Meadowridge Library hall. Click here for map.
Time: 19h30.
Entrance fee: Free for Friends of Meadowridge Common. R10 for visitors.

Refreshments will be served afterwards.
For more information, please phone Fiona Watson at 021 712 0696.

A set of greeting cards will be on sale to raise funds for maintenance and upkeep of Meadowridge Common. The cards feature paintings by botanical artist, Olwen Gibson, of four flowers that occur on the common: Pelargonium triste, Pelargonium cucullatum, Salvia chamelaeagnea and Wachendorfia paniculata. A pack of four cards costs R50 but Friends of Meadowridge Common only pay R40. For more information, click here.

Photo: Paul and Liz Johnston, Anthony Hitchcock, Eric Harley and Tony Norton with the Erica verticillata plants that were successfully restored to the Prinskasteel wetland in Tokai, by Tony Rebelo. See article in Veld & Flora March 2012.

Garden plants that grow naturally on sandy flats

To download a list of indigenous plants that grow naturally on sandy flats, drawn up by Alice Notten - click here.
See the following post for a summary of Alice's informative talk.

Waterwise indigenous gardening on the sandy flats

Alice Notten, Chief Interpretive Officer at Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden, gave an entertaining and informative talk on Waterwise indigenous gardening on the sandy flats. The talk was hosted by the Friends of Meadowridge Common, and took place in the Meadowridge Library - one of several interesting talks hosted by the Friends over the years. Alice Notten is a botanist and horticulturist who has worked at Kirstenbosch for many years, and is known by many for her interesting articles on gardening with indigenous plants on the website PlantZafrica as well as those in Veld & Flora. This is a summary of her talk, with links to the PlantZafrica site, where you can obtain more information on gardening with specific plant mentioned.
When Alice bought a house in Plumstead, she was a bit shocked at the windy, sandy conditions she faced as she had only had experience gardening in the rich, loamy soils of Johannesburg, and then the rich loamy soils of Kirstenbosch where she had lived up to this point. Anyone who has gardened in this area knows the type of soil that she was confronted with: sandy, oily soil that repels water. Alice started off by planting a windbreak around the perimeter, finding Searsia (Rhus) pendulina to be the most successful fast-growing, bushy hedge,
as well as the pioneer Keruboom (Virgilia divaricata and V. oroboides). This is an excellent pioneer tree that will act as a "nursery species" by providing protection for slower growing, more sensitive plants that you can plant around it. Being a pioneer species, the Keurboom will die in about ten to fifteen years by which time the slower growing species will be well established.
Another good hedge plant is Tecoma capensis. It is hardy and colourful and fast growing.

Talk on Restoring Sand Plain Fynbos on our Common

Carly Cowell of Kirstenbosch is also the SANBI Project Co-ordinator for the Millennium Seed Bank Project, run by Kew Gardens. Carly has travelled to well-known gardens in Europe, China and Australia and will be giving a public lecture, hosted by the Friends of Meadowridge Common, on “International trends in Restoration and the Meadowridge Common Project".
The talk will take place on Monday 5 October at 7.30 pm at the Meadowridge Library, Howard Street. There is no entrance fee. Any enquires can be directed to Fiona Watson at 021 712 0696 or Caroline Voget on 072 933 4510.

The Cutting Edge

The AGM of the Friends of Meadowridge Common took place in the Meadowridge Library last night. After an overview of the year's events by Chairman, Roger Graham, and a fascinating report on the flora (mostly) and fauna of the Common by Botanical Officer, Fiona Watson, Trevor Adams, Collection Nursery Supervisor and Kirstenbosch Plant Propagator took over.

Trevor is an enthusiastic and skilled horticulturist who obviously knows all the tricks of the trade when it comes to propagating our indigenous flora. Wielding his Felco secateurs (the best he reckons) he demonstrated various techniques of taking cuttings, as well "layering" from a living tree. (The photo shows Roger Graham helping Trevor with the layering technique.)

Trevor handed out some notes and an extremely valuable Vegetative Propagation Year Plan for Indigenous Species which synthesizes years of trial and error by the Kirstenbosch horts. This is like gold for any gardener doing their own propagating!

And for the lady who wanted to know how to propagate her bougainvillea, click HERE for a good website.

If you missed Trevor's demonstration, he will be giving another talk at Kirstenbosch on 8 April 2009 on the PROPAGATION OF INDIGENOUS PLANTS for the Wednesday Talks at Kirstenbosch presented by Room to Grow at the SANLAM HALL at 10.30 am. Enquiries: info@roomtogrow.co.za or tel: 021 4656440/072 2012535/021 797 8975.