Estate Living Magazine Retirement Living - Issue 40 April 2019 | Page 52

C O M M U N I T Y
L I V I N G
BLAZING
NEW
TRAILS
Servest Landscaping, with over 4,500 people, 57
horticulturists, and 600 years of combined industry
experience, has recently used its expertise and
technology to successfully partner with two
high-profile clients on their exciting and
challenging ecological restoration projects.
Course rescue
One of these projects was keeping the Centurion
Golf Estate in pristine condition. The golf estate
itself sits on the banks of the Hennops River
and, for most of the year, can be considered a
feature on its own. However, when certain parts
of Johannesburg experience heavy rain, the
river bursts its banks and floods the golf course
with rubbish and mud. This caused the course to
be unplayable, and in need of urgent corrective
action. The restoration team was given a maximum
of two days to remove this mud from the playing
surfaces, otherwise it would have resulted in the
grass dying, and massive areas would have had to
be sodded, which would have created additional
expenditure and delays. In an average season the
course floods between five and eight times, but it
also needs to be maintained at the highest level
every other day of the year.
With the most recent flooding occurring over a
weekend, the team had to work extra hard to get
the entire course playable in just three days. All
the mud had to be scraped and squeegeed off
the fairways and, in some instances, loaded onto
tractors and trailers by hand for disposal. Coupled
with this, several tons of rubbish were also
removed from the course. Mark van der Linde,
Servest Landscaping’s branch manager, says, ‘I
was extremely proud of our team; not once did
they complain or stand back. This was a fantastic
effort, in the true spirit of being a team.’
Quick-change transformations
The second restoration project was preserving
the grounds of FNB Stadium. Servest was
proud to provide their services and skills to this
prestigious multipurpose stadium, which hosts a
number of events every year – from international
football tournaments to popular music concerts,
festivals and even National Prayer Day. Juggling
these different requirements can be tricky, but
the Servest team rose to the challenge each time.
For example, with only 12 days between the
Afcon qualifier between Bafana Bafana and
Nigeria on 17 November last year, and the much-
anticipated Guns N’ Roses concert on the 29th,
the team had much work to do. The specialised
pitch construction crew moved in on the evening
of the 17th and removed the entire surface of
the pitch to create a stage-friendly platform
for a series of non-football events. First was the
National Day of Prayer on the 25th, and then – four
days later – the heavy metal Guns N’ Roses. Three
days after the sold-out Guns N’ Roses concert,
music fans from all over South Africa streamed to
FNB Stadium once again to watch international
stars like Beyoncé, Jay-Z and Janet Jackson in
the Global Citizenship Festival put on to honour
Nelson Mandela.
But FNB Stadium is primarily a football venue, and
the home ground of Kaizer Chiefs, so early on the
morning of 3 December the team moved again to
prepare for Amakhosi’s 700th PSL match, making
them the first South African team to reach this
epic milestone.
They had nearly a month, which seems like a
long time, but it was a hot summer with daily
temperatures peaking at around 35°C, and no