H E R B S                                                    NO 84     August 2007 NEW-LOOK FESTIVAL WILL HERALD FERNKLOOF’S HALF CENTURY

A new team is running the show at the Fernkloof Nature Reserve this year – with the help of experienced back-up. Convener of this year’s Wildflower Festival is Vivian White, show handyman and traffic expert for the past four years. A dedicated cyclist, social and community worker, Vivian says he is enjoying the new challenge. Mart Joubert and her Botstap team will undertake the important and onerous catering assignment while Liz Hutton is running the marquee and its intricate sales set-up. They will welcome your help! The flower show itself is again under the management of Margaret de Villiers, the specimens under Lee Burman, the mini gardens with Sandy Jenkin and the nursery under Jack Bold. And welcome back Mr Chairman who is on his feet again after a long hard struggle with a viral illness. Fernkloof Nature Reserve was proclaimed fifty years ago on November 22 and festivities are being planned for that date. But there will be a special floral arrangement in honour of the occasion and a photographic exhibit showing the wonders of Fernkloof. So spare a thought for the men who made all this possible – for the trails, the gardens, the stone-built centre, housing the herbarium, hall, offices and kitchen, the Visitors’ Centre up the road and the Cliff Path on the coast. They were Otto J Prillewitz, Mayor at the time, Ion Williams and Eric Jones of the Horticultural Society soon to become the Botanical Society. And don’t forget Harry Wood, the first curator whose stone walls we keep uncovering in our restoration of the gardens and whose towering trees shade us still. HOW YOU CAN HELP - PHONE: Convener Vivian White 028-3140171 Arranging Margaret de Villiers 028-3140084 Gardens Sandy Jenkins 028-3140554 Marquee Liz Hutton 028-3124048 Flower sales Elwen van Schouwen 028-3123138 Catering Mart Joubert 028-3140264 Nursery garden/Sales Jack Bold 028-3122985 Publicity Charlotte Kirkman 028-3131992 Admission Keith Kirkman 028-3131992 Parking Vivian White 028-3140171 The festival will run from Thursday 13 September to Sunday 16 September from 9am to 5pm. STOP PRESS: Indigenous plants from the gardens on display and the nursery will be on sale during the festival. T-shirts adorned with the festival project theme “Conservation through Education” are already on sale at the nursery for R65. Raffle prizes are spectacular as always ranging from exclusive get-aways to wine and jewellery. The Wine Auction takes place at the Wine Village on August 10 and, courtesy of Paul du Toit, will give fundraising a kickstart.

DID YOU KNOW?

An Amethyst Sunbird was seen flitting from wild fig to the flowering aloes skirting the amphitheatre. Brought down from the top of the mountain – a cross between Erica fastigiata and Erica macowanii sporting a dark pink tubular corolla fringed with pale pink star-shaped lobes. A compulsive bulb planter has again targeted the reserve, this time around one of the lower benches. The picking team removed about thirty Amaryllidaceae bulbs, which were then planted in the Search and Rescue garden. NB: If you have an overdose of bulbs, please donate them to our gardens, not the mountains. Our gardening team was among the five finalists for the Mayor’s annual environmental award. The baboons are really enjoying the gardens. They shredded our first King Protea bud, ate the red suikerbossies for breakfast, snapped off precious aloe spikes and devastated the flourishing watsonias. Hoogie van Hoogstraaten’s alien vegetation removal team has cleared about 300 hectares in the past few months. Ninety per cent of Fernkloof above the contour paths is now clean. Thanks go to Giorgio Lombardi and his team for bush-whacking Klipspringer, Lemoenkop, Kanonkop contour and Northcliff trails (funding courtesy of PSG Konsult and the municipality). We look forward to some interesting ‘ephemerals’ along the newly-cut verges. The former gum forest, now a desert above the fence of the new Fernkloof Estate, has been cleared of baby gums and acacias by Bob Hill and his team. It is starting to come alive again with blue lobelias, yellow daisies, purple vygies, baby restios and proteaceae. Scarlet-flowering Gladiolus priorii (formerly Homoglossum) and a Cussonia thyrsiflora (coastal cabbage tree) were found recently in the region of Buff Rock. Gladiolus carmineus, the pink Cliff Lily, has also been found there in past years and on the Rotary Way burn. Quite high up for coastal species…

NO PARKING ON THIS LOVELY LACHENALIA PLEASE!

If you are wondering why the proposed parking area outside the entrance of Fernkloof has not materialised, blame the shy-flowering Lachenalia montana. Frank Woodvine, former curator of Fernkloof and now a member of the Fernkloof Advisory Board, states that this is its only habitat in Hermanus so the decision was made to protect it. As it only flowers after fire, it is unlikely that we will see this beautiful species unless a little judicious clearing in the right place can tempt its deep growing bulb to sprout. G.D. Duncan describes Lachenalia montana as follows: The dense inflorescence consists of numerous pendulous, campanulate flowers borne on magenta-coloured pedicels. The cream-coloured outer perianth segments have large green or greenish-brown gibbosities, and the slightly protruding inner segments have a green or greenish-brown marking near the tips. Refer to our website www.fernkloof.com for a colour photograph of this lovely lachenalia.

PROGRAMME

HACKING MEETS :	08:00	September - March
	08:30	April - August

Tuesdays (third of each month) :	August 21
	September 18
	October 16
	November 20

The Mossel River needs your help! Hacks at present meet at the top of Riverside Road, Voëlklip. Sesbania, Acacia longifolia, baby gums are just some of the alien vegetation that need to be eradicated.

For further information contact Bob Hill 028-3121463

 

OTHER SOCIAL EVENTS :

August 10	18:00	WINE VILLAGE: Wine Auction
August 24	18:00	FERNKLOOF: Special meeting followed by soup and sherry and a slide show by Godfrey Coetzee from Lucerne Farm
September 13-16		FERNKLOOF: Wildflower Festival 9am to 5 pm
October 6	08:00	DAY WALK: mountain walk near Gansbaai – to be advised
October 30 - November 1		EXCURSION: De Bakke, Mossel Bay (two nights)

For further information re walks please contact Piet Joubert

tel 028-3140264

Published by Hermanus Botanical Society, PO Box 208, Hermanus 7200 Editor: GERALDINE GARDINER - Fax (028) 313 0617