Tree Planting

Most people recommend planting trees in spring so that the plant can grow and settle into its new home and, in the case of Gauteng, benefit from the summer rainfall.  Well, what do you do when you move house in the middle of summer and you're ready to plant in autumn?  We've taken a leap of faith and planted at the onset of autumn.  I stopped feeling sorry for our plants when I read a banner at a nursery advertising their autumn sale:  "Autumn - nature's best time to plant".

Our garden has been designed to create an indigenous area focused at attracting wildlife. 

Since the garden is small, we had to choose our trees very carefully, taking into account their full-grown size.  Despite our love for Acacia trees, we had to accept that our property is too small to plant any of our two-year old specimens which we’ve grown from seed.  After weeks of research and lots of decision-making, we decided to use Heteropyxsis natalensis (Lavender Tree) as our main tree for the garden.  This tree is an attractive deciduous with glossy green leaves which develop rich red colours in autumn. The crushed leaves smell of lavender, hence the common name.  The small yellow flowers bear a fragrance that attracts bees, wasps, beetles and butterflies which in turn, attract numerous insectivorous birds. Flowers are borne between December and March.  We have planted 2 of these trees and at just 1.45 metres tall, they are already serving as perches to the birds visiting our garden.

The H. Natalensis grows up to 6 metres tall with a 5 metre spread as compared to the Acacia xanthphloea (Fever Tree), our first choise Acacia, which is 12metres tall and 14 metres wide. 

Digging the holes for the trees was a huge mission.  Not only do we have to deal with the numerous rocks on the site since we are on the foot of the Krugersdorp Hill, but we’ve also unearthed piles of builder’s rubble which were buried under a thin layer of topsoil with grass laid over.  Here’s an example of the average size of the rocks which we’re unearthing. 

(In case you're wondering, this is a normal hand spade.)

We bought the property with two queen palms in the garden, on either corner of the north side of the garden.  As these are not indigenous, we are replacing them with indigenous trees which will meet our wildlife garden goal.  The eastern wall in the garden borders an internal road in the complex.  There isn’t a high volume of traffic, but we wanted some subtle screening to help create some privacy in our garden.  We selected a Kiggelaria africana (Wild Peach) as the focal plant for the north eastern corner.  This will be our largest tree in the garden and could grow to a handsome 8 metre tall tree with an 8 metre spread.  This will certainly provide the screening as well as shelter to many birds.  The leaves of this plant are eaten by the caterpillars of the Acraea horta butterfly.  “Why,” you may ask, “do we want caterpillars to eat our prized tree?”  Well, cuckoos love caterpillars, so we’re expecting future visits from these summer migrants who travel all the way from Europe to graze delicious African caterpillars.  Besides, the tree recovers quite quickly from this worm invasion and produces new leaves.  Apart from the cuckoos, the fruit of the Kiggelaria africana also attracts Cape Trush, Cape Robin, Cape White-eye, Southern Boubou and mousebirds.  However, not all trees bear fruit as sexes are separate on different trees, with only the female trees bearing fruit.  We bought what we hope is a female tree with the hope that there is a suitable breeding companion close by.

What was so incredible is that this was our first tree that got into the ground and we planted it late one evening.  At sunrise the following morning, there was a great commotion around it.  We had 4 house sparrows perched in its branches to welcome it to the neighbourhood (no doubt with a ceremonial christening!).  It was incredible how they somehow found a place to perch on such a tiny tree.  Here’s a photograph of the tree:

We've kept the palm in place until the Kiggelaria is more established so that it can help protect it from winds and possibly frost this coming winter.

We created a focal point for our bedroom window by planting a Dais cotinifolia (Pompon Tree).  Well, this was also strategically placed to screen off our neighbour’s Bougainvilla, a shrub for which I bear not a singled fond memory – I think I got scratched far too many times trying to rescue tennis balls from one my mother had trained into a hedge.  This is again, a relatively small tree.  I’ve never seen a mature one, but according to the books, it can reach up to 6 metres tall with a 5 metre spread.  The books also say that it only flowers for two weeks in the year, but the one that we got to see daily was in flower for about 2 months.  Apparantly, if they get sufficient water, they flower for longer.



Dais cotinifolia flowers



This is a Dais cotinifolia which we used to pass everyday at our previous home.



We also planted a lemon tree.  We chose to not only provide fruit for the birds, but for ourselves as well.  We were fortunate to find a brilliant supplier who had a fairly mature tree in a 60 litre bag which came with fruit that was ripe and ready to eat.  What better advertisement could they use for their trees?

Lemons