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One of our pollinators is BZZZZZZZBee and you might think that bees are always busy pollinating in the garden but this bee is the exception of the rule. Oh yes; BZZZZZZZBee pollinates but also enjoys life like cuddling with a co-worker and having a break.
See for yourself:
general plan dry garden
Six years ago the idea for a Dry Garden was launched for a piece of bare land with a surface of approx. 1500 square metres. It was the most brackish part of our 10 hectare (25 acres) property and soil analysis in The Netherlands showed a pH of 8.3 and an organic content of 3 percent next to numerous deficits of nitrogen, phosphorous and diverse trace elements. We choose for the organic and slow way in improving the soil by deminishing the brack and bringing the pH down to 6.8 by adding coarse river sand and plenty of compost in the top 50 cm of the existing (too clayish) soil. After that we soaked everything a few times to get the brack level down (<40ppm; was 200 ppm). And than again mixing compost and gritsand through the top 30 cm of the soil. Considering that it takes approx. 3 years before the new soil (micro-organisms, etc.) is established we waited that long before we made the first trials with some cacti, other succulents and some acacia species including acacia hybrids.
preparation works
This year we made the final decision and two students (Pauline Gillet and Sybille de Cussy) from the landscape university in Blois, France (ENSNP) have been fully engaged in designing the garden and implementing their design in practice.
De Cussy and Gillet knew literally nothing about succulent plants and lack of knowledge often results in an unusual surprising approach.
artist impression of aloe bush
They created a dry garden with 7 spheres (totalling 78 different species, subspecies, etc.); creeping plants, shrubs/trees, rocks, cactus and euphorbia bushes, aloe bush, mixed border, agaves.
rock art in the dry garden
Students of the McGregor Waldorf School were engaged in rock art drawings throughout the garden as part of Land Art Project in South Africa that is initiated by Soekershof.
detail of aloe bush
A PDF-file with plan and plantlist is -free of charge- available for interested landscapers and other interested parties with simular soil ‘problems’. Request e-mail to info -at- soekershof.co.za
This post is “Under continious Construction”.
In the past we have mentioned a few times ’soil’ and ’soil preparation’. See here, there and there.
Every nursery has its own recipes and one may assume that these all work.
In addition to the info provided via the links above:
Succulent plants thrive in a wide range of soils each with their own characteristics. An Aloe plicatillus originate from acid soil (pH <6) near Franschoek in South Africa and and the Gunniopsis glabra originate from a saline flood plain (pH >7.5) in Western Australia.
These differences don’t necessarily mean that these plants don’t grown in different environments.
A good (general) pH of the soil is just below neutral (=pH 7); pH 6.8 is recommended. Soil analysis in the Western Cape is done by Bemlab in Somerset West Do It Yourself pH-meters are not always accurate.
An interesting article about pH is this one. With thanks to Ralph Martin of the south Wales branche of the British Cacti ad succulent Society.
The most important characteristic of the soil is drainage. Especially the top soil must drain freely an excess of water to avoid ‘neck rot’ and also (high temperatures after rainfall) mealy bugs. Ideal is a free draining top layer (10-20cm) of coarse sand or gravel rich soil and a sublayer (10-20 cm) which can accumulate a little bit of water. The characteristics of the sub soil (>30 cm) should be more or less simular to that of the sublayer of the topsoil and is important for deep rooting plants like collumnar cacti. Soil (top- and subsoil alike) may never be waterlogged.
Preferable poor soil (low organic content) but some compost (preferable of horse manure or composted mushroom medium) in sublayer and subsoil is recommended. In some part of South Africa (for example those with brackish/saline soil) an small dose of bonemeal can improve the soil. Fertilisers (even dried chicken manure or ‘bounce back’) improve plant growth but also make the plants extra vunerable for pests and diseases.
No-till
In large scale agricultural operations there is an increasing amount of farmers that implements ‘no-till’ in the cultivation of their crops thus as less as possible disturbing the soil.
Quote from Wikipedia: In no-till farming the soil is left intact and crop residue is left on the field. Therefore, soil layers, and in turn soil biota, are conserved in their natural state. No-tilled fields often have more beneficial insects and annelids[12], a higher microbial content, and a greater amount of soil organic material. Since there is no plowing there is less airborne dust.
No-till increases the amount and variety of wildlife. This is the result of the improved cover because of surface residue and because the field is disturbed less often than conventional fields.
If you know that your soil is suitable don’t dig. 
Preparation limits itself than only to weeding, cleaning and planting unless you planned to make (small) rockery heeps, etc. (see picture).
Almost every country in the world has one; an ancient or contemporary man made Earthwork representing deep spiritual feelings or as an Art form, etc.
Our ‘Mama Africa’ is dedicated to the African Continent and its people.
At this very moment we work together in the finishing of the shape and the planting of around 500 succulent indigenous Antima creepers which will cover the 3 metres high, 7 metres wide and 16 metres long object in one to two years.
Hopefully ‘mama’ is going to make history in Africa.
Last Saturday around 5 million people (merely Dutch) around the world watched our succulent gardens via the satellite. This 4 minutes item show a global overview of Soekershof and says more than a few dozen pictures. The (spoken) text is partly English.
Enjoy the movie
Every garden has some focal points. The art of landscaping a succulent garden is to have focal points which change with the seasons or even months or weeks. A few of this weeks landmarks:
almost 2500 different species of succulent plants outdoors
Regulary we have nursery customers from North-Eastern South Africa, more precisely: Gauteng. And one of the first things we ask is the local climate; the occurence of ‘Black Frost’ in particular. Many succulent plants can survive (light) frost and others don’t. Simply Indigenous Nursery in Hartebeespoortdam (again chosen as South Africa’s best retail nursery) is one of those relatively few nurseries which values a good information service towards their customers. On their website you find the article ‘Captivating Succulents‘. Personally we prefer ‘Succulent Plants’ instead of succulents but that is a detail. The article serves well as a comprehensive guideline to all in that part of the country. Did you, by the way, that many nurseries (especially the mainstream) in Gauteng are located in areas with no (black) frost?
Publishing House Harpers (USA) has published a new book about mazes and labyrinths
“Mazes around the world” is written by Mary D. Lankford (illustrations: Karen Dugan) and designated for educational purposes.
And you can order the book here.
The author is from Austin, Texas and our first contact dates back a few years. Two of the thirtytwo pages are dedicated to the Klaas Voogds Maze of Soekershof in Robertson, Western Cape, South Africa where at the moment strange things are happening.
Mary D. Lankford is also engaged in a future publication about umbrellas. And guess what: The Soekershof Maze Umbrellas will be in it.
No ‘copycat stuff’ but original design as is everything we try to initiate.
We love to do extraordinary things in our gardens. That makes gardening a real challenge. Five years ago we ‘planted’ a wire baobob tree (3 metres high) at the entrance and this changed the life of street wire artist Messina Mussindo (“Joey”) completely. Within half a year the second (same size) was acquired for the hall in the new South African embassy in Berlin (Germany) and since than Joey’s fame has been going around the globe. From a humble street wire artist Joey (not subsidised as many others) transformed into a wire artist in a real workshop but he remained modest.
Joey just started up with a new range of wire trees. The ‘Acacia joey’ can be found in several private collections around the world. Interesting however is also where his different ‘genera’ end up. The baobabs (‘Adansonia Joey’) are mostly found in German speaking countries and Australia plus North America and the flat-crowns (‘Acacia Joey’) in the UK, Ireland, Netherlands and Scandinavian countries. The one on the picture is made for South African account and designated for a wedding present.
Joey once said that he wants to go into history as
the ‘one wire artist’. He made a range of ‘one wire products’ of which the elephants and the geckos are the most wanted; followed by his ‘TokTok Egg Cups’. The more complicated elephants and geckos are not easy to make. It takes him, for example, two days to create a one wire gecko out of 6 metres of wire. The end result is a maze in its own right. And isn’t that one of the things Soekershof is known about?
But Soekershof is more and Joey is a significant part of the experience for except telling visitors something about his life and his ancestry he also lets them “shake and rock and roll” and by giving so much, guests (including South Africans!!!) learn something about a (forgotten/unknown)part of the African culture. Joey has many friends for life around the globe!
Locally less known is also that the gardens of Soekershof are home of the largest OUTDOOR collection of succulent plants from around the world including the oldest cactus of South Africa.
And very soon a new object will be erected somewhere in the gardens: a laminated wooden cactus of 4.5 metres high. This cactus is created by another user of our workshop: local woodworker Marthinus Plaatjies. He is also the one who makes our seedboxes with embedded cotyledon.
Marthinus PLaatjies in workshop.
Last year a representive of the Copenhagen Botanical Garden visited Soekershof.
On his private site he published quite a few pictures of our garden and since we have many requests to add more photo’s of our gardens (certified by Fair Trade in Tourism in South Africa) we thought that it would be better to link to a site with photo’s made by somebody else. See also the slide show on this website.
The photo below was taken earlier this week in one of our gardens. It’s winter here in Robertson, Western Cape, South Africa but Winter or not our gardens are a floral display throughout the year.
winter in robertson
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