The mixed bushveld of the Steelpoort river valley presents some of the more astonishing plant diversity displays South Africa has to offer.  It is not called the Sekhukhuneland Centre of Plant Endemism for nothing!  Imagine being allowed here to explore some of the bush on foot, where tourism has hardly reached and agriculture has been carried out in a notably mild manner.  Imagine further that you are allowed to take home (legally, as part of an official Government authorized programme!), the special plants of your choice from the wealth of interesting indigenous species that grow here, to plant in your own garden.  You may hardly know where to start!

Plant something that grows and you have changed the world!  Gardeners would enjoy such a statement, for everyone likes the ego stroked and hopes for significance of personal existence.  But is the change one makes in the world always an improvement?  A simple question with a complex answer!  If, for instance, your garden interferes with the continued natural vegetation around you, the consequences may well become far-reaching and quite possibly negative.

Fields and verges are in season clustered with white, pink and deep mauve cosmos flowers that lift the soul, regardless of where they come from!  The origins of some of these plants is a story in itself.

In Operation Wildflower we have space for the citizen who has only the political power of one vote to do something about protecting what he or she loves in nature.  You can join us to participate in a legally and sensibly established collection treasure hunt for plants you wish to take home, love and cultivate with care in your own garden.  Thus you save them from development destruction!   (Now isn’t that a nice and appropriate little oxymoron for our times, don’t you think?)