The Plant School - Nurturing and developing a deep understanding of plants

Recent Tours

In November 2008 a group of students from The Plant School made a return visit to see the plants in the Cape region of South Africa. Contacts have been established over the years and it was a chance to hear specialists in their field talking on the outstanding plants from this region. Many plant hunters have been keen to introduce plants from South Africa into Europe, including the outstanding plantsman, Lawrence Johnston of Hidcote and Serre de la Madone fame. He went on to grow several of the indigenous Cape flora in his garden on the Riviera in the South of France.

Ernst van Jaarsfeld gave the students a memorable afternoon tour of the Kirstenbosch Botanic Gardens and explained that understanding the relationship between plants and their habitat pays off. Amongst many topics he talked about Plectranthus and Pelargonium growing in the wild. These are especially used to natural disturbance from local wildlife, notably antelope, and cope well with the transfer to garden cultivation. However species growing in areas not usually grazed by animals and thus not disturbed such as the genus Protea, are less easy to grow as garden plants.

There are several outstanding nurseries growing and hybridising indigenous plants in the Cape region of South Africa and the students were able to visit several of these and hear to specialists talking about their plants and their growing techniques. At The Cape Seed and Bulb Nursery the students were given a memorable talk by the plantsmans Jim Holmes who explained his current work on the genus Disa.

The students also visited local gardens some concentrating solely on indigenous plants while others reflecting a more mixed style of planting. Perhaps the best example of this combined style of planting was the garden of Mrs Andrew Ovenstone at Stellenberg, featured in the recent BBC 80 Best Gardens series with Monty Don.

The plants were generally considered to be more abundant this time round than on the last plant tour and the weather more variable but this did not dampen the enthusiasm of the keen and knowledgeable students on the tour.