Category: Activities

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Offerings from Nature

Offerings from Nature - Keurboom - Precious Tree Project

The heavy winds that had become a regular occurrence in the last 3 months of 2019 played havoc with some of the Keurbooms in our area. Virgilia divaricata & Virgilia oroboides. Keurbooms are pioneer trees – they are one of the first of the endemic trees in the Garden Route to pop up and they grow very quickly – providing initial canopies of shade to many of the not-as-fast growers and generally have a life span of around 15 years.

The flowers of both species are rich in nectar and therefor attract many insects and birds – loeries, sunbirds, carpenter bees, honey bees and ants. They also provide nesting homes for birds like doves and white-eyes. Vervet monkeys chew the leaves and eat the seeds. On the forest floor, the large ghost moth, Leto venus, is known to lay its eggs at the foot of the tree so that the hatching caterpillars can bore into the wood. The blue butterfly (Lampides boeticus) breeds on Keurboom trees.

  • Keurboom
  • Keurboom Flower - Precious Tree Project
    Keurboom Flower

Two Keurbooms on one of the small holdings in Wilderness Heights fell over as a result of the heavy winds in September and October 2019. PTP used this as an opportunity to harvest the seeds of these fallen trees for our future tree planting needs. We also used this as an opportunity to provide employment for some of our young – where they spent the day removing the seeds from their pods, counting them out and packaging them in recycled containers for germination at our mini satellite nurseries.

Gift a Tree

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Planting Precious Trees in a Heatwave

Planting trees in a Heatwave - Volunteer Tree Planting - Precious Tree Project
Planting trees in a Heatwave - Volunteer Tree Planting - Precious Tree Project

Volunteer Tree Planting: We spent Saturday afternoon at the Smarts’ spot – one of our Wilderness Heights mini forest sites – where we got stuck into ring-barking any Australian Blackwoods we could see and adding more precious trees to their existing mini forest.

Planting trees in a heatwave. It was hot and dry, and the recorded 16mm of rainfall a few days before didn’t touch sides to soften the ground. Still baring scars from our ring-barking efforts last month, our committed bunch pitched up in numbers and planted these beautiful trees (some of them 1.9m Yellowwoods) in what had once been a pine-infested area. This is the one of many rewards …. that we get to keep adding to these mini forests here in the Garden Route and watch them grow year on in!

Sponsor a Tree!

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Arbor Month: Oakhurst Insurance growing a Corporate Forest

It’s Arbor Month and we’re growing a Corporate Forest - Precious Tree Project
It’s Arbor Month and we’re growing a Corporate Forest - Precious Tree Project

Arbor Month 2019 – Corporate Team Building: We spent the day with a super enthusiastic bunch of staff from Oakhurst Insurance Company Limited, planting out a range of endemic and indigenous forest trees on Libertas Guest Farm. These trees were all sponsored by the company themselves, and their intention is to continue to plant trees and grow an “Oakhurst Insurance Company Limited Forest”.

Well done to all at Oakhurst Insurance Company Limited for getting on board to help address climate change and the challenges that come with it!

Sponsor a Tree!

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Riverwalking … Panga in Hand

Volunteer Ring Barking - Riverwalking - Precious Tree Project
Volunteer Ring Barking - Riverwalking - Precious Tree Project

Volunteer Ring Barking Session: For those of us living in the Garden Route, we are fortunate to have our landscape divided up by glorious rivers that flow down from the mountains into the sea. Unfortunately, most of these rivers and their riverbeds are choked up with highly invasive trees and vegetation not indigenous to the area, especially Australian Wattle, Australian Blackwood and the more highly invasive Madeira Vine. They suck up this valuable water source, create competition for our own indigenous trees, and their presence limits the natural biodiversity of the area. Little or no management of their growth by the relevant land owners /local authorities has allowed them to flourish.

Precious Tree Project and our enthusiastic group of volunteers took a short trek through the forest down to Kaaimans River on Saturday morning and spent time ring-barking Wattle and Blackwoods along the riverbed. As labour intensive as it is, ring-barking is inexpensive and an effective natural method of slowly eliminating these trees without harming the environment.

Today we walked back knowing we had made a positive impact… however small; but definitely much bigger than the blisters on our hands. Eina!

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Celebrating 60 Years of Service with 60 Precious Indigenous Trees

Celebrating 60 Years of Service with 60 Precious Indigenous Trees - Precious Tree Project
Celebrating 60 Years of Service with 60 Precious Indigenous Trees - Precious Tree Project

Corporate Ceremonial Tree Planting: MAN Automotive (South Africa) sponsored the planting out of a 60 tree, mini-indigenous forest in celebration of Nico Oosthuizen, and his adding value to South Africa – building businesses, creating jobs and growing the South African economy. We gathered together on the site, Libertas Dairy Farm, of the newly planted mini forest on Monday and held a small ceremony in honour of his contribution!

Sponsor a tree!

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Planting a 60 Tree Mini Bio-mimicked Forest

Planting a 60 Tree Mini Bio-mimicked Forest - Volunteer tree planting - Precious Tree Project
Planting a 60 Tree Mini Bio-mimicked Forest - Volunteer tree planting - Precious Tree Project

Volunteer Tree Planting – Mini Bio-mimicked Forest: MAN Automotive sponsored 60 trees towards a mini endemic and indigenous forest. Our group of committed VIPs arrived in full force to plant out this mini forest on Libertas Dairy Farm. The work was made that much easier as a result of the clearing efforts undertaken by the Potgieters.

Thank you Linda and Johan for your ongoing time, effort and personal investment in the rehabilitation and restoration process of your land!

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Counting and Separating Indigenous Seeds

Seperating Indigenous Seeds - Precious Tree Project
Seperating Indigenous Seeds - Precious Tree Project

Separating Indigenous Seeds: We were fortunate to have a few thousand seeds (endemic and indigenous forest and food trees to our area) donated to our tree growing and nursery development program. In order to allocate them to each mini satellite nursery, we joined up with these young unemployed members of our local community on a sunny day, out in the open, under a tree where they were shown how to count them out, label and package them in recycled paper holders.

Counting out hundreds of seeds half a pinhead in size is no easy task …. but the conditions were perfect and these young men showed patience in the process. They also learnt how to identify the endemic indigenous trees in our area from the seeds they were handling, and a way to recognise and name the different species of seeds. A handy bit of knowledge to have if you want to become a VIP!

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Rock the Route Pitching up at School

Rock the Route Pitching up at School - Precious Tree Project
Rock the Route Pitching up at School - Precious Tree Project

Volunteer Tree Planting: Rock the Route was our sponsor for trees this month. Fourteen of them were planted out the day before (2 per grade), and the balance of them were planted out by our VIPs on the following day.

Heini Bosman, from Rock the Route, pitched up and joined in to help – little did he know that he helped us plant out the very trees his own company had sponsored. Rocking the Route indeed! Thank you Rock the Route / Pangea Trails for affording us this opportunity to enrich the natural surroundings at Hoekwil Primary.

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Hands, Knees, Feet and Faces

School Educational Workshop & Tree Planting Programme - Precious Tree Project
School Educational Workshop & Tree Planting Programme - Precious Tree Project

School Educational Workshop & Tree Planting Programme: We spent a day with all the Hoekwil Primary School learners; raising awareness around our natural environment, the valuable role that trees have in the bigger picture, and of course, we planted trees with them all. Getting hands, feet and faces dirty in the process!

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Hoekwil Primary School Getting Creative

School Educational Workshops and Tree Planting Programme: The learners of Hoekwil Primary School were enthusiastic participants in our School Educational Program. After the planting, they were all given the opportunity to represent their newfound knowledge in a creative way.

These are some of the many beautiful creative interpretations we would like to share. Thank you to the staff and teachers for all the input and who helped make this event possible!