Owner: Soekershof; The 'scientific' backup URL:http://soekershof.wordpress.com Join Date: Wed, 08 Oct 2008 09:38:22 -0500 Rating:0 Site Description: Cultivation guidelines for nursery customers of Soekershof; Private Mazes & Botanical Gardens in South Africa.
With numerous links to sites with more theoretical background. Site statistics:Click here
Art in Garden 2008-09-28 13:47:47 We love to do extraordinary things in our gardens. That makes gardening a real challenge. Five years ago we ‘planted’ a wire baobob tree (3 metres high) at the entrance and this changed the life of street wire artist Messina Mussindo (”Joey”) completely. Within half a year the second (same size) was acquired for the hall [...] Read more:Garden
Pachypodiums 2008-09-25 01:37:49 The genus Pachypodium belongs to the family of the Apocynaceae. There are two seperate areas where they are native: Madagascar and Angola/Namibia. There is some confusion about the number of species. Fred Triep counts 13 species of which 4 from Namibia/Angola and 9 from Madagascar. Wikipedia totals 25 species of which 20 originate from Madagascar. The truth [...]
The Boojum in South Africa 2008-09-14 03:35:34 The Idria collumnaris (Boojum) originates from the Winter rainfall area (coastal Northwestern part) of Baja California in Mexico (500 km South
of USA along the Pacific). The environment is simular to that of the major part of the Western Cape (except Cape Town and direct surrounds). Our seeds were sourced at Cactus Plaza in Holland [...] Read more:Africa
, South Africa
Painting with plants 2008-09-06 04:55:45 For people with not enough space (flats with balconies, etc.) but who love (succulent) plants there is a simple solution. Hanging baskets (for sale in any nursery where-ever) or plant hangers. We prefer plant hangers for the simple reason that ceilings in modern building are low and bumping your head into baskets all the time [...] Read more:Painting
Botanist shoots in garden 2008-08-15 01:25:57 Last year a representive of the Copenhagen Botanical Garden visited Soekershof.
On his private site he published quite a few pictures of our garden and since we have many requests to add more photo’s of our gardens (certified by Fair Trade in Tourism in South Africa) we thought that it would be better to link to [...] Read more:shoots
Landscaping a Rockery (part 3); Work in progress 2008-07-08 13:37:36 A few months ago we updated the readers of this blog about the huge rockery we are creating at the entrance of our humble enterprise.
The American part of this rockery (closed in by sections with succulent plants from Australia and the African continent) has already progress
ed in such a manor that we could put rocks around [...] Read more:Landscaping
Cactus Labyrinth and Labyrinth Mother 2008-06-19 13:54:28 At the entrance of our Klaas Voogds Maze, here at Soekershof; Private Mazes & Botanical Gardens in South Africa, we created in 2003 a classical 5-circuit labyrinth of Echinocactus grussonii (Golden Barrel Cactus
or Mother’s in law cushion) which we sowed in Febrary 2001. This picture was taken last week:
And here is the Labyrinth
Mother:
[...]
A simple, easy to maintain, succulent garden 2008-06-08 01:32:10 Just an example (we use it for our nursery customers) of a simple, easy to maintain succulent garden. We made it within 4 hours (3 staff) including the sculpture. Plants used are diverse Echiveria species and Aloe barbadensis (Aloe vera).
It’s ideal for people who want to have a different garden but don’t have the time [...]
A classical French design succulent garden 2008-05-27 08:16:06 We are proud to have hosted Eulalie Baudet from Blois in France for a couple of months. She studies landscaping at ‘L’ecole nationale supérieure de la nature et du paysage’. This study (only for promising and very talented students from all over France) is a very extensive one and it takes at least five years [...] Read more:classical
, design
, French
History of cacti in South Africa 2008-05-23 00:49:36 On our website you can find a brief history of cacti in SouthAfrica
. Last night we received a nice addition from the USA:
“The restablishment of the Soekershof garden after many years of
neglect is fantastic — the photos were fantastic. Here is what I
have in my records for Marthinus Malherbe:
Malherbe, Marthinus [Maarten] (1885-1976); RSA nurseryman [...] Read more:History
, South Africa
Succulent Plants in Gauteng 2008-10-30 03:36:41 Regulary we have nursery customers from North-Eastern South Africa, more precisely: Gauteng. And one of the first things we ask is the local climate; the occurence of ‘Black Frost’ in particular. Many succulent plants can survive (light) frost and others don’t. Simply Indigenous Nursery in Hartebeespoortdam (again chosen as South Africa’s best retail nursery) is one of [. Read more:Plants
About Mazes and (cactus-) Labyrinths 2008-10-14 05:27:58 Publishing House Harpers (USA) has published a new book about mazes and labyrinths
“Mazes around the world” is written by Mary D. Lankford (illustrations: Karen Dugan) and designated for educational purposes.
And you can order the book here.
The author is from Austin, Texas and our first contact dates back a few years. Two of the thirtytwo [...]
Landmarks in the garden 2008-11-03 23:05:33 Every garden has some focal points. The art of landscaping a succulent garden is to have focal points which change with the seasons or even months or weeks. A few of this weeks landmarks:
Euphorbia akmat
Adenia glauca
Euphorbia horrida
Pleiospilos
Aeonium hybrid
Pachycereus weberii
Soekershof garden 1
mesemb
Dioscera elephantipes (elephants foot)
Soekersh
Dutch TV: A dream garden in South Africa 2008-11-25 01:05:43 Last Saturday around 5 million people (merely Dutch
) around the world watched our succulent gardens via the satellite. This 4 minutes item show a global overview of Soekershof and says more than a few dozen pictures. The (spoken) text is partly English.
Enjoy the movie
Read more:Africa
, South
, South Africa