Reviving Paradise: River indigos in the month of love
It’s a beautiful, small tree that is easy to grow and take care of.
Welcome to Reviving Paradise, a weekly column from The Green Net, a non-profit company focused on our natural environment.
We on the South Coast are blessed to live in a place of exceptional natural beauty – from spectacular gorges, cliffs and caves, to forests, rivers, beaches and the mighty Indian Ocean. We have it all.
One lovely local plant that is in flower at the moment is the River indigo. Indigofera jucunda is its scientific/Latin name; in isiZulu it’s known as Umnukambida, in isiXhosa, Umsipane and in Afrikaans, Rivierverfbos.
It’s a beautiful, small tree that is easy to grow and take care of. It is suitable for small gardens and containers and makes a lovely feature in big gardens and groves.
As February is the month of love, why not consider getting permanent flowers for your sweetheart in the form of a river indigo tree?
It bears exquisitely romantic pink and white flowers for a long period in summer and is rich in nectar that attracts bees, many butterflies including the peablue butterfly and the garden acraea butterfly, and other insects.
Lots of birds visit these trees to feed on the insects, so there’s plenty of activity, colour and birdsong around river indigos.
If you’d like the tree tall and graceful, leave it to grow on its own, or trim back the branches by a third in winter to encourage bushy growth and more abundant flowers the following summer.
River indigos are easy to propagate from seed. They are fast-growing and will flower within the first year or two.
Of course, the easiest way to get one is to visit your local nursery.
* FEBRUARY GIVE-AWAY
Answer the following question to stand a chance to win one of three copies of The Green Net’s 2023 Biodiversity Calendar.
Which species of whale migrates along our coastline every year from May to December?
Please send your answer and name via WhatsApp to 084 9872018. The winners will be announced in the first week of March.
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