The Sunday Mail
After Independence we inherited a culture of growing exotic plant species in our gardens; some good and some bad. Up to this day our gardens are mostly 80 percent exotic. Walk in most cities you will not miss the presence of exotics such as gum trees, pine trees, sky is the limit, flamboyant, jacaranda and lantana, just to mention a few.
However, indigenous vegetation is limited to those naturally occurring species such as your Msasa woodlands and few indigenous relics are found in people’s gardens or on our street sides.
A rather sad state of affairs considering the many indigenous plant gems found in this country. It is my hope through this article to explore this diverse array of indigenous plants from bulbous plants, shrubs to trees. Many plants are found in all the corners of our beautiful country, which can and should be used in our gardens.
Why should we use indigenous plants in our gardens? We know the constant battle that rages on as organisations such as the Environmental Management Agency battle invasive plants such as lantana camara, opuntia fulgida and water hyacinth.
These are just some of the many exotics which were introduced but have turned out to be a menace to our natural forests and water bodies. The cost to rid ourselves of these goes into the thousands.
Let us start with adenium obesum, the impala lily or the sabi star. It is a beautiful succulent of the apocynaceae family with red or pink flowers. It grows into a sturdy succulent with an enlarged base.
Many good indigenous plants can be found in the eastern highlands, among them are plants such as freylinia tropica referred to as inyanga hedge, warbugia salutaris, widdingritonia nodiflora, cycads, pordocarpus latifolius, albizia gummifera and haemanthus multiflorus.
This list is by no means exhaustive.
The inyanga flat top, acacia abyssinica is probably one of the most elegant acacias I have seen growing up to 16m. The flat canopy makes it an exceptional landscaping subject. Clematis brachiata, traveller’s joy is a common climber in forests flowering from February to May.
The common fire ball, haemanthus multiflorus is common in most parts of the country sending out a red flower from October to December. It is a small bulbuous plant, which grows on the fertile forest floor in part shade.
We even have wild orchids like ansellia Africana, which has such beautiful yellow but brown spotted flowers. Ansellia has been plundered by collectors making it one of the threatened species of orchids.
We cannot conclude without mentioning the rain tree, philenoptera violacea. It is a good tree, which is known for raining in October just before the rains, with an interesting symbiotic relationship with an insect called ptyelus grossus, which feeds off the sap of the tree creating rain drops in the process.
Indigenous gems are indeed too numerous to mention them all here. But I think it’s high time we consider changing the way we choose garden plants and street trees, to safeguard our rich and diverse flora.
Andrew Mangwarara is a horticulturist who can be reached at [email protected]
