Van Stadens 14.08.2013

There was lots of unfinished business today on the eve of our departure on a month holiday so we got cracking early.

Ellie had denuded our garden (not really) of plants for the entrance circle, mainly Pelargoniums for the Pelargonium patch and some crassula and we managed to plant them before Sheena and Sian O’Keeffe of Free Spirit Adventures arrived to discuss the trail run for our Open Day. They were very enthusiastic and it looks like it is a go. They will check it out on Sunday and let us know.

While we were planting Tony had come and inquired if we needed more soil and as the answer was yes he got Pottaman and his tractor to get us some more scoops and after our meeting we carried on shaping the horse shoe. In the meantime Neil had arrived and he also got stuck in and dug out some deep rooted strelizias to replant in a more appropriate place. Fortunately he shares our vision and comes up with some good suggestions.

This took us the rest of the morning and as we retired for lunch we were most surprised to learn that Sue had also arrived and, as she had promised, attacked a patch of Bryophyllum seedlings in the arboretum.

After lunch we loaded the leftover aloes into the trailer to be planted out in the arboretum in the cycad patch but we first wanted to finish our landscaping. While we were doing that Samantha and V (two of the students) also came to have a look and they got roped in to help with carrying the aloes to where we wanted to plant them. We were quite pleased with the result, it certainly enhances that part of the arboretum.

Lastly Ellie gave the one remaining picnic table a final coat of varnish while I made temporary repairs to the seat of the skedonk. We will need to buy a fair amount of timber to restore the two remaining tables to something a little more reasonable.

I was going to place some more signs for the biking trail, unfortunately we ran out of time and on the way home I realised I had forgotten to fix the faulty sprinkler in the nursery.

The Agapanthus Neil planted last week have taken well

A view of the Pelargonium mound. It does not look like much as yet but we’ll keep on planting. We need more succulents for the middle patch as well.