Operation Wildflower - a grower's guide

South Africa is not only blessed with a rich botanical heritage that is and should remain part of the pride of the nation. Our country has many citizens who are knowledgeable and passionate about understanding,enjoying and protecting the uniquely South African plant world.
These people do many different things about knowing and growing plants, teaching newcomers (and each other) and sustaining our natural environment.
The members of Operation Wildflower form part of this fraternity, but they have a very specific mission and role:

Operation Wildflower (OWF) is an association of plant lovers who save plants which are destined to be destroyed when development transforms a piece of natural vegetation into a township, road, dam, mine, etc. They collect and replant them on their own properties, rather than seeing them bulldozed and lost.
These plant lovers liaise widely to become aware of situations where plants must be removed and work in collaboration with the environmental protection authorities to perform their transplanting operations in an orderly fashion.
OWF members never sell the plants thus obtained.

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Newsflash

The latest genus album added to this site is the one on Asparagus. This means that existing photos and stories about Asparagus species already on the site have been moved from the more general type albums (shrubs, climbers and herbs) into their own new genus album. New items on the Asparagus retrofractus species have been added.

You will find a genus album in every case where enough material has already been accumulated to warrant a stand-alone grouping of photos and stories on plants of the genus. An example of a recently added album under Genera is the Leucospermum one. These "pincushion" shrubs of the Proteaceae family are among the fynbos favourites.

The album on the genus Aloe is already large, although not even half of the South African Aloe species have been photographed and described yet.

Another bigger album is the one on the local Euphorbia plants. This is the genus album that has received the most visits of all the genera albums.

Members of Operation Wildflower have collected about 8000 indigenous plants belonging to more than 70 species from the De Hoop Dam site to plant in their private gardens to date. Why not join in the fun? New members are welcome!