Spekboom, also known as Pork Bush or Elephant’s Food, an indigenous evergreen is an environmental miracle worker, with the potential to tackle carbon emissions like no other plant can. This makes it a powerful tool in the fight against climate change.
Essentially, it acts as a super carbon sponge, absorbing carbon from the atmosphere and turning it into plant matter. Spekboom has a photosynthetic mechanism which allows it to adapt to both rainforest-like conditions and semi-arid conditions, making it suited to almost any garden.
It favours north-facing slopes where it is exposed to maximum sunlight. Thriving in poor soils, it tolerates both drought and frost. During drier times, the plant has the ability to open its stomata at night in order to prevent water loss during the heat of the day. Spekboom is a water-wise plant that’s ideal for low-maintenance gardens. It can survive on just 250-350mm of water a year and is easily propagated. Simply cut or break off a piece of a Spekboom, let it dry out for one or two days and then stick it in the ground. Make sure you don’t give it too much water or it will rot.
Spekboom can live up to 200 years and trees can grow as tall as 5 metres. Prior to the advent of large-scale livestock farming, some areas of the Eastern Cape had Spekboom forests so thick that it was said a grown human could walk across the top as if walking on a carpet…
The good news is that we can eat it too. With a slightly lemony taste, Spekboom leaves are juicy and full of moisture and highly nutritious, enjoyed straight off the bush, in salads, stews and even jams.
Spekboom doesn’t burn easily, and makes for inexpensive and pretty firebreak hedges, that both humans and animals can eat!
That makes Spekboom a topic especially relevant to our low and no-income communities where houses are built so close to each other that fire is a regular concern, and it is usually not only one home that burns down, but many. Whether you are looking for a plant that can be turned into a hedge or a bonsai, or used as groundcover or a large bush, Spekboom can do it all.
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