African Wildlife & Environment Issue 82

GARDENING FOR BIODIVERSITY

P. auriculata is a very versatile plant with a variety of applications in the garden. In nature it often scrambles over rocks and hillsides or weaves its way up and over shrubs. One can copy nature and let it grow up a bank or use it as a robust ground cover. Or it can be mixed with other indigenous plants to form a dense, attractive hedge. It is also ideal to train onto a trellis and looks spectacular over an arch framing an entrance, especially when combined with the brilliant yellow flowers of the Canary Creeper Senecio tamoides (or S. angulatus if you live in the Western or Eastern Cape). Because P. auriculata is such a vigorous and fast grower, the only work that it will cause in the garden will be to trim it back. However, if this is done too severely it will temporarily impair the rate of flowering, as blooms occur mainly on new growth. In

Despite the white flowers, Plumbago zeylanica is not to be confused with the white cultivar of Plumbago auriculata (Photograph: W Menne)

A mating pair of Common Zebra Blue butterflies with the male on the left (Photograph: S Woodhall)

a lid to release them. Like the flowers, the capsules are sticky and hairy and, as a result, are spread by adhering to animals and clothing. The flowers are great to use in arrangements and, although some do drop, they last reasonably well in the vase. If one picks fairly short stems and clusters them together, the sticky flowers cling to one another forming a posy. In nature, this stickiness may serve the purpose of preventing non-pollinating crawling insects from getting to the flowers and stealing the pollen. It is put to another use by little children who love attaching the flowers to their ear lobes as pretty ‘earrings’. Being edible, the flowers make a novel decoration on salads and cakes or floating in a chilled drink. When dried, they make a fine ingredient for a wildflower potpourri.

As bees move between their hive and an abundant food source such as Plumbago auriculata , Fork-tailed Drongos often place themselves in the flightpath for easy pickings (Photograph: J Wesson)

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