Estate Living Magazine Connection - Issue 43 July 2019 | Page 44

C O M M U N I T Y
L I V I N G
THE DRY ALLURE
OF THE XERISCAPE
Gardening in the driest or windiest parts of the country?
Xeriscaping may be the system you’ve been looking for.
We’ve all heard about water-wise gardening – the practice
of choosing, grouping, and placing plants according to their
watering needs in order to maximise the efficiency of the little
water you have.
But what if you had almost no water at all? Or – and many South
African gardeners fall into this category – you have no water, and
you also have to put up with dry, salty winds throughout the year?
Nothing’ll grow ’round your spot, will it?
Well, not all heroes wear capes. Some of them wear xeriscapes.
Xeriscaping takes the principles of water-wise gardening to
their ultimate conclusion. In xeriscaping, you choose your plants
– usually desert-adapted species – for their suitability to your
climate, and you design the shapes and hard elements of your
garden to ensure run-off so that your plants won’t drown when
they do get a little too much moisture.
It’s not for everyone. If you’re gardening in the wetter parts of
the country, it’s definitely not for you. But if you’re in an arid area
– well, let’s party.
THE BASICS
Xeriscaping. The word is a composite of the terms ‘xerophyte’
and ‘landscaping’. Xerophyte is the term for plants that have
adapted to survive in water-scarce areas.
Some great South African examples would include aloes,
euphorbias, cotyledons (pigs’ ears), Portulacaria species
(spekboom, great for hedging and background planting),
crassulas, lithops (stone plants), stapeliads (starfish flowers), and
vygies. In other words, the succulents or vetplante – although,
to be sure, there are other plants, like some of the Cape reeds
(restios), that’ll stand up quite well to xeriscaping, too. Given
that this country boasts the world’s most diverse selection
of indigenous plants, that many of our indigenous plants are
succulents, and the fact that many succulents are obligingly easy
to propagate, we’re truly spoiled for choice when it comes to
plant material for this method of gardening.
What is important, though, is your soil and its preparation.
Succulents usually prefer full sun, little or no irrigation, and
well-drained soils; they usually don’t give a fig for indulgences
like compost, fertilisers, or heavy frost. And they’ll die if you
over-water them – I know this from experience. As apprentice
horticulturists, some classmates and I tried growing some
American cactuses in the boss’s hydroponics tanks. They grew
beautifully, and very quickly. Plump, fat, and gorgeous. And then
one morning everyone came to work to find that the Americans
had spent the night exploding into a mushy mess of gunky goo.