Van Stadens

The new bench

Last year the picnic bench at the Bridge Lookout disappeared and, thanks to Ellie’s efforts, the Botanical Society kindly agreed to donate one. We asked for delivery on the day of our monthly meeting so we would have enough able bodies to mix some concrete to make this bench a little more difficult to remove. […]

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Paperbark tree

During the various walks with Adrian Odgers and Woodridge one of the stories he tells is about the resemblance between a telephone book and the paperbark tree. Well, now we have proof. Hardly a month after the fire new shoots appear and soon we will have a lush tree again. Talking about proof, we can

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Cycads

Today we concentrated on the Cycad patch in the arboretum. Most of them are burnt but, as they are resprouters there are already some small leaves emerging on some of them. There is further not much we can do apart from clrearing out the burnt branches, Behind the arboretum it looks like the sign can

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A week later

We are a bit over the initial dismay about the fire and are making plans to turn it into an opportunity to make some changes to the arboretum. First priority is still to secure the water supply. It must have been quite a blaze with all the grass in the rondavel to burn the buried

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The big burn

We were forewarned as we were notified through social media that a section of the Reserve had burned on Friday but we were not prepared to see the devastation it had caused to all our hard work with the Arboretum, the pipe line, newly planted trees and various signage. It may be a case of

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