Calling all gardening fundis

IF you enjoy gardening and have a couple of hours to spare on a Friday morning, the Durban Botanic Gardens is encouraging you to join its Volunteer Friends Programme.

The Durban Botanic Gardens would like to kickstart an active gardening volunteers programme, steered by the management at the Gardens and is looking for keen gardeners. At present there are two volunteers who work in the herb garden every Friday morning from 8.30am to 11.30am, and together with the curator, Martin Clement, have transformed the herb garden. There is also one volunteer who works in the orchid nursery twice a week.

According to Martin, the culture of volunteering is certainly not new in the Gardens, as volunteers assist with schools’ education programmes and special collections, however the aim is to extend this into specific horticultural projects.

Retired journalist, Ingrid Shevlin, said she came up with the idea to spruce up the herb garden a few months ago, after noticing as she wandered around the gardens, that the herb garden was in a terrible state.

“I posted something on Facebook and shared it with the Durban Botanic Gardens, and they contacted me to ask if I would like to set up a volunteer group to clean it up. It just snowballed from there. Now that I am retired, I want to do something to give back. I enjoy gardening, there’s nothing more pleasing than seeing what you have planted growing and flourishing, it is very therapeutic!” she said.

Ingrid took along two friends, both journalists, who have been helping over the past few months, but neither are able to carry on.

“It’s incredibly hard to get people to help as they are altruistic and only want to do things that will benefit themselves. I am looking for people to help, who want to put something back,” she said.

“This volunteer programme has been running for five months and is a revitalisation of the Friends of Durban Botanic Gardens programme. We are looking for people who are keen gardeners, perhaps those who no longer have a garden of their own and would like to potter around in our gardens. It’s also a social event and this is a fun group to work with. We can already see the fruits of our hard work,” said Martin.

Ward councillor, Chris Pappas, got his hands dirty last Friday saying he was happy to get involved.

“People sit at home and complain about things deteriorating in the community, but this is an opportunity to take an active role in looking after the nice things we do have, like the Durban Botanic Gardens,” he said.

Martin is looking for a small core group of individuals who are keen to get involved and assist the Gardens once a week in transforming other relatively small thematic gardens, such as the monocott garden, the orchid house and the Japanese garden, within the Durban Botanic Gardens.

For those interested in being part of the Active Gardening Volunteers Programme, contact the Durban Botanic Gardens on martin.clement@durban.gov.za to find out more.

For more information on the Durban Botanic Gardens visit: www.durbanbotanicgardens.org.za