Small beauty

Lichens, fungi and insects thrive with wild abandon (and all the rapid predation of a humid sub-tropical climate) in the forests where I play, study, draw my inspiration and ultimately seek new plant elements of aesthetic abandon to introduce into landscaping.

Plants for spiritual and physical well-being

Dlamini (see accompanying picture, at his home in Mtambalala) is a traditional Healer specialising in plant medicine. Not all traditional Healers focus intently on the medicinal qualities of plants (although all are trained in the medicinal use of plants). Some concentrate more on the spiritual, psychological, ancestral or magical realms. Dlamini vociferously identifies and cultivates plants in which he sees potential. Any plant grower drawing from the rich indigenous stock of the Wild Coast (or South Africa in general) cannot help but notice the intense variation of plants, from trees to ground covers and bulbs, with a medicinal (or sometimes spiritual) application in rural society. Urban specialists have increasingly turned to these plants for mainstream researching of potential modern applications in curative and preventative medicine.

Mpondoland Centre of Endemism

Much of my inspiration for growing (and landscaping with) indigenous plants comes from 20 years of wanderings around the cliff-faces, valleys, ravines, gorges, forests, coast and grassland of the Wild Coast, particularly eastern Mpondoland - home to exceptional endemism. The accompanying picture is from a gorge where I've noted intense quantities of Plectranthus, Clivia, Hypoxis, Scadoxis, and Impatience under one of the richest sub-tropical forest canopies imaginable.