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Tag: Garden Travel

  • A Stunning Botanical Hotspot: Waylands Wildflower Reserve in Darling, South Africa – Gardenista

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    There are many reasons to visit South Africa, but for anyone whose heart beats faster for flowers, there is this hint: Take a deep breath, exhale slowly, and book a trip any time from late August through September, when the summer-dry expanses of the West Coast region and its hinterland erupt in spring’s wildflowers after soaking winter rains.

    Because of the staggering diversity of floral displays spread across the country’s Western and Northern Cape provinces, the choices of destinations can be overwhelming. The tiny town of Darling in the Western Cape, just an hour’s drive north of Cape Town, is at once accessible, hospitable, and bursting with a variety botanical hotspots. Waylands Wildflower Reserve is just one of them.

    Above: Wild arum lilies—Zantedeschia aethiopica— at Waylands Wildflower Reserve, near Darling.

    Waylands Wildflower Reserve, about three miles southeast of Darling, is one of several local reserves open to visitors during peak wildflower season. Last September I visited with my evolutionary-biologist friend, Jacqueline Bishop, who loves flowers as much as I do, but who knows more about them as well as the creatures with which they co-exist. (It’s like walking with Google, except more fun.) Our destination that day was the town itself, and the Darling Wildflower Show, held annually over the third weekend of September. But at Waylands we became side-tracked, in the best possible way.

    Above: A flock of Lachenalias.
    Above: Heliophila africana tilting on slender stems.
    Above: Shaggy monkey beetles are important pollinators of spring’s ephemeral wildflowers.
    Above: Geissorhiza radians.

    Created in 1922 by Frederick Duckitt, Waylands is one of the oldest wildflower reserves in South Africa. This pocket of critically endangered Renosterveld remains on land farmed by the Duckitt family since 1865. (Closer to town vast greenhouses accommodate their orchid business, which exports exotic orchids globally. It is open to the public during this weekend, and we were sustained there by some very good pannekoek, crêpe-like pancakes filled with cinnamon and sugar and served with lemon.)

    Above: Common butterfly lily—Wachendorfia paniculata—thrives after fire.

    Over 300 species of wildflowers have been recorded at Waylands, whose farming methods help conserve one of the most threatened habitats in the Cape Floristic Region (which is smallest of the world’s six plant kingdoms, but the mightiest in terms of diversity). Grassfed cattle and sheep are allowed to graze here after the flowers have set seed, from November—early summer—to the end of April before the wet, Mediterranean winter sets in. This ancient seasonal grazing strategy, predating colonial history, allows these hoofed animals to actively spread seed, and to turn bulbs. And every four to seven years, intentional fires are set in autumn, ahead of rain, to help regenerate plants that thrive after fire.

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  • A Stunning Botanical Hotspot: Waylands Wildflower Reserve in Darling, South Africa – Gardenista

    [ad_1]

    There are many reasons to visit South Africa, but for anyone whose heart beats faster for flowers, there is this hint: Take a deep breath, exhale slowly, and book a trip any time from August through September, when the summer-dry expanses of the West Coast region and its hinterland erupt in spring’s wildflowers after soaking winter rains.

    Because of the staggering diversity of floral displays spread across the country’s Western and Northern Cape provinces, the choices of destinations can be overwhelming. The tiny town of Darling in the Western Cape, just an hour’s drive north of Cape Town, is at once accessible, hospitable, and bursting with a variety botanical hotspots. Waylands Wildflower Reserve is just one of them.

    Above: Wild arum lilies—Zantedeschia aethiopica— at Waylands Wildflower Reserve, near Darling.

    Waylands Wildflower Reserve, about three miles southeast of Darling, is one of several local reserves open to visitors during peak wildflower season. Last September I visited with my evolutionary-biologist friend, Jacqueline Bishop, who loves flowers as much as I do, but who knows more about them as well as the creatures with which they co-exist. (It’s like walking with Google, except more fun.) Our destination that day was the town itself, and the Darling Wildflower Show, held annually over the third weekend of September. But at Waylands we became side-tracked, in the best possible way.

    Above: A flock of Lachenalias.
    Above: Heliophila africana tilting on slender stems.
    Above: Shaggy monkey beetles are important pollinators of spring’s ephemeral wildflowers.
    Above: Geissorhiza radians.

    Created in 1922 by Frederick Duckitt, Waylands is one of the oldest wildflower reserves in South Africa. This pocket of critically endangered Renosterveld remains on land farmed by the Duckitt family since 1865. (Closer to town vast greenhouses accommodate their orchid business, which exports exotic orchids to Europe and the East Coast of the US. It is open to the public during this weekend, and we were sustained there by some very good pancakes, filled with cinnamon and sugar and served with lemon.)

    Above: Common butterfly lily—Wachendorfia paniculata—thrives after fire.

    Over 300 species of wildflowers have been recorded at Waylands, whose farming methods help conserve one of the most threatened habitats in the Cape Floristic Region (which is smallest of the world’s six plant kingdoms, but the mightiest in terms of diversity). Grassfed cattle and sheep are allowed to graze here after the flowers have set seed, from November—early summer—to the end of April before the wet, Mediterranean winter sets in. This ancient seasonal grazing strategy, predating colonial history, allows these hoofed animals to actively spread seed, and to turn bulbs. And every four to seven years, intentional fires are set in autumn, ahead of rain, to help regenerate plants that thrive after fire.

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  • Native in West Cork, Ireland: A Landscape-First Hotel

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    Increasingly vacation time is doing double-duty as a nature fix, an opportunity to be immersed in plants and nature for immediate decompression and reconnection. At Native, a destination on the beautiful wild coast of West Cork in Ireland, they’ve fashioned a new term for it: “a landscape hotel,” where vegetation is not mere dressing but an integral part of the experience.

    Founders Simon and Didi Ronan, who moved to West Cork from Dublin in 2021, spent three years looking for a site before finding (with some help from the local community after another purchase fell through) an overgrown derelict dairy farm. Simon, head of sustainable landscape studio SRLA, is originally from Wexford, while Didi is Irish but grew up in Belgium. Both have spent time living and working in London and Paris before relocating to Ireland. Part of the attraction to the area was the lively local scene; the village of Ballydehob on the Wild Atlantic Way, is home to a bohemian and arty scene with one of Ireland’s finest live music venues, Levi’s Corner House, as well as a Michelin-starred restaurant, Chestnut.

    Since the opening of their guesthouse last year (the rooms can be booked individually or the whole house can be taken over), the couple have added three garden suites, each with their own private garden and outdoor bath (and for the largest suite, its own sauna too). In addition there’s the Milking Parlour, a communal event and dining space where they plan to stage supper clubs that will showcase the area’s incredible local produce, from foraged plants to artisan cheeses.

    Outside the focus is on pollinator-friendly plants. Thanks to the North Atlantic Drift, this south-westerly point of Ireland enjoys warm air and water that arrives from the Gulf of Mexico. It provides a damp and temperate climate, and as a result, more opportunities for growing. The site also lies in a natural east–west valley, so that it’s sheltered from prevailing winds.

    But their project stretches much farther than the 2.5-acre site that surrounds the guesthouse and garden suites. Twenty per cent of the profits from the business is used to rewild a 75-acre site, just 10 minutes from Native and open to guests. Here, the couple has been eradicating invasive non-natives and allowing the land to regenerate.

    Let’s take a closer look.

    Photography courtesy of Native.

    Above: The exterior of one of Native’s new garden suites. The planting peaks in late summer and early autumn, when the garden hums with insects. In shadier areas, a more woodland feel is created with evergreen ferns and woodland flowers adding seasonal pops of color.

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