tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-84799704240009875692024-09-21T15:14:12.423+02:00Sometimes we go clubbing with the flowers and the spiders... Mutant candy focuses on the now: landscaping, propagation and botanical exploration; all as art form; all as beauty in ordered madness. It's an evolutionary thing.Wild Coast Plantshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05226127399056474760noreply@blogger.comBlogger10125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8479970424000987569.post-62724880592306441632009-02-18T17:15:00.001+02:002009-02-18T17:41:09.600+02:00

Here are two tough Plectranthus groundcovers that prefer dry conditions.Plectranthus spicatus typically grows predominantly in the sun on cliff-faces, with fairly shallow soils and high wind exposure. It will cover an embankment very rapidly, and is another plant that will colonise downwards on a tightly-packed retainer wall, albeit more slowly than Crassula multicava (see previous posting).

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8479970424000987569.post-33879424901867980892009-02-18T17:00:00.002+02:002009-02-18T17:41:33.155+02:00

I work with several indigenous Crassula species, including the more shrub-like form plants (and great, albeit different, bonsai material) C. ovata and C. arborescens. I personally enjoy the weird leaf form and spectacular flowers of C. perfoliata, and find that C. pellucida combines well with trailing Arctotis species.However, it is to C. multicava and C. spathulata that I turn for tough Crassula

Wild Coast Plantshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05226127399056474760noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8479970424000987569.post-50499171759834688532009-02-11T13:45:00.003+02:002009-02-11T14:00:33.558+02:00

My approach to both landscaping and propagation is heavily informed by a 20 year long engagement with the concepts and principles of Permaculture - I like the idea of multi-functional, integrated and intrinsically healthy localised ecosystems. Therefore the integration of livestock into my propagation processes was merely a matter of planning and time, not of debate.I've finally been able to do

Wild Coast Plantshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05226127399056474760noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8479970424000987569.post-33677337102685221282009-02-11T13:14:00.000+02:002009-02-11T14:20:34.564+02:00

I didn't like roses. They're overdone; they're soft as aphids; and they require far too much care. Then I learnt to eat rose petals in salads (the old types are much better); found a use for rose hips (in health teas); and saw the most stunning security fence imaginable around high-value fruit farms close to Cape Town (endless lines of rambling roses, completely covering the original razor wire

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8479970424000987569.post-49810615616046512842009-02-04T12:17:00.006+02:002009-02-05T11:34:32.594+02:00

This Crassula ovata variation from the Mbashe area (where the very rare and endemic Aloe Reynoldsii grows) illustrates the basic evolutionary principle that where there is a niche, a species will adapt and thrive.As a landscaper, I initially struggled with the concept of good drainage for water lovers - I mean, how do you expect to provide drainage in a swampy, wet environment? Observing plants

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8479970424000987569.post-55817971142405272912009-01-28T09:09:00.000+02:002009-01-30T16:10:02.713+02:00

I found these growing on boulder screes amidst (or often dominating) clivias, scadoxis and cycads, in my all-time favourite ravine; a place of rare beauty where I've returned up to 6 times a year for the past 20 years. Dangerous, inaccessible and unknown - its had a persistent pull on me unmatched by any other place of great natural beauty that I've enjoyed. This Impatiens is considered rare; it

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8479970424000987569.post-15393806301911105902009-01-21T09:03:00.000+02:002009-01-30T16:10:48.617+02:00

This magnificent shade tree, with its bright-green foliage, is rooted just below the lip of a 100m cliff-face.

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8479970424000987569.post-43030674883564899142009-01-14T08:56:00.000+02:002009-01-30T16:11:21.888+02:00

Lichens, fungi and insects thrive with wild abandon (and all the rapid predation of a humid sub-tropical climate) in the forests where I play, study, draw my inspiration and ultimately seek new plant elements of aesthetic abandon to introduce into landscaping.

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8479970424000987569.post-90490238808135751452009-01-07T08:46:00.000+02:002009-01-30T16:12:35.341+02:00

Dlamini (see accompanying picture, at his home in Mtambalala) is a traditional Healer specialising in plant medicine. Not all traditional Healers focus intently on the medicinal qualities of plants (although all are trained in the medicinal use of plants). Some concentrate more on the spiritual, psychological, ancestral or magical realms. Dlamini vociferously identifies and cultivates plants in

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8479970424000987569.post-65623667471141925522008-12-31T08:36:00.000+02:002009-01-30T16:13:24.360+02:00

Much of my inspiration for growing (and landscaping with) indigenous plants comes from 20 years of wanderings around the cliff-faces, valleys, ravines, gorges, forests, coast and grassland of the Wild Coast, particularly eastern Mpondoland - home to exceptional endemism. The accompanying picture is from a gorge where I've noted intense quantities of Plectranthus, Clivia, Hypoxis, Scadoxis, and

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0