Laerskool Fontainebleau boasts a beautiful garden with a host of flowers in bloom thanks to their gardener who works tirelessly all year round at the school’s premises in Fontainebleau. Morgan Petlho’s passion for gardening started when he began working at the school 24 years ago, after losing his job when the factory he worked for closed its doors. Employed as the school’s gardener, he quickly fell in love with making things grow. “With these hands, I can make anything grow,” he said.
The self-taught gardener points out that the secret to gardening lay in the soil. “Flowers speak their own language, they tell you what they need,” Petlho added.
Petlho, who has been married for 20 years, said even his garden at his house in Soweto sprouted beautifully and that his neighbours often came
to marvel at it. Nicolette van der Watt, a teacher from the school said that Morgan Petlho’s garden showed his hard work and dedication and made the entrance to the school cheerful and bright.
She added that the other teachers at the school were also very impressed with Petlho’s green fingers as every spring his clivia’s bloomed a lovely orange that brightened up the school’s entrance. “I was shown how to tend to the flowers by my role model Aleta Venter, whose gardening tips made me an even better gardener,” Petlho said.
The proud gardener advised home owners who did their own gardening to rather water the garden in the morning and not at night as he said that flowers slept at night and watering them late could kill them. He further added that mulching, (leaving the autumn leaves on the flower beds to give the soil nutrients) was very important as it renewed the soil and gave it some nutrients.
He finished by saying that it was always best to trim hedges and flower beds with a garden scissors and that insects found in the garden were best left to their own devices.
