Wake up and smell the roses
MULDERSDRIFT – Roses are in bloom most of the year and in the first cut-rose farm in the country, people have the chance to enjoy these beautiful flowers.
Maybe you’re on your way along the N14 to the Sterkfontein Caves or the Cradle of Humankind, but if you are, make sure to look to your left 5.6km outside of Muldersdrift and your likely to see big white walls. Laurentia Farms, which is the oldest cut-rose farm in South Africa opened in 1898.
This farm boasts a very rich history. Louw Geldenhuys may be famous for the Emmarentia Dam, Louw Geldenhuys School in Linden and Braamfontein farm, but he also bought the Laurentia Farm in 1898, originally called Honingklip, however it did not start out as a rose farm. In 1918 his son, Louw Geldenhuys II, settled down on the farm with his wife, Anna.
Riana du Plessis is the owner of Versilia, the business that grows the roses on the 5 hectares of the Laurentia Farm. According to Du Plessis, the rose farm started when a hail storm hit while inhabited by Louw Geldenhuys II . It killed all the sheep on the farm. Geldenhuys’s wife, Anna then started selling the flowers in her garden from the garage of their home.
In 1940, the couple’s only son, Louw Geldenhuys III settled on the farm. His wife, Yvonne and their three daughters, Analine, Luzette and Delia still live on the farm, but the growing and selling of roses are the responsibility of Du Plessis. According to her, each hectare has about 70 000 roses, used mostly for weddings and functions.
She added that growing roses can be extremely hard as they need to be watered every 45 minutes in summer times and every hour in the winter. “Roses like to be in the light and they like a lot of plant food. If you water roses, water them on the ground, never from the top,” explained Du Plessis.
Du Plessis has worked on the farm since 2006 and said that one should have your hand on the roses at all time. “The price of the roses are determined by the length of the stem and the size of the rose head,” said Du Plessis.
Rows and rows of roses in different shades of red, pink, orange and more make one forget that the city is just around the corner.
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