Community Projects Award
Finalist: Garden Route Botanical Garden Trust
Niki Moore
Tourists visiting the Garden Route in the southern Cape often start looking for the gardens only to find there aren’t any.
“We try to tell people the whole area is a garden,” says botanist Yvette van Wijk, “and that’s why it’s called the Garden Route.”
So to make up for this lapse, Van Wijk and the members of the Garden Route Botanical Garden Trust decided to establish an indigenous botanical garden, dedicated to the flora of the southern Cape, in George.
It was truly a labour of love. The Western Cape is overtraded with botanical gardens and the Eastern Cape has none. George falls into the Western Cape by a sliver. There were no funds to support yet another botanical garden, though the plants of the southern Cape are as unique and threatened as their more showy cousins to the west.
The Garden Route Botanical Garden Trust is an independent, non-profit organisation that aims to showcase and preserve the wealth of indigenous flora in the Eastern Cape.
The importance of the southern Cape flora was recognised decades ago, when the first magistrate of George established a 12ha botanical garden, complete with water furrows, lakes and landscaping. Unfortunately, this fell into disrepair and became neglected and choked with aliens.
In 1995 a group of concerned citizens decided to rescue the garden. They formed the trust in 1997 and set about restoring the Van Kerwel Nature Reserve into a garden.
“In two years we raised donations totalling R900 000. Some R400 000 was donated to build a herbarium [a library of dried plant specimens]. With this money, we have been able to develop pathways and signage and an environmental centre,” says Van Wijk
In the past five years, the alien invader plants have been removed; the historical water furrows have been restored; a stone “rescue garden” and a raised scent-and-touch garden have been built; thousands of pioneer and other plants have been established; paths have been laid out; beds have been planned, cleared and planted.
But a garden is also about people. The herbarium and the environmental centre are busy centres for recreation, research and education.
The trust has embarked on a school programme, with booklets and programmes for learners. After requests from teachers, a school Environmental Expo was held in a community hall in May. It provided a floral insight for more than 3 000 pupils and teachers over three days. During the annual Wildflower Show last October, the gardens welcomed more than 1 500 people.
The enthusiastic response from schools and the public led to the formation of the Botanical and Environmental Education Project in 1996.
Funded mostly by The Green Trust, the project is an outreach programme designed to teach adults and children the value of a healthy environment.
The slogan of the Garden Route Botanical Garden Trust is simple and to the point: “Remember all life depends on plants.”
ENDS