Wednesday, 13 November 2024

THE JOY OF TOUCHING MY BABY BAOBAB TREE

 

My two days old baobab

THE JOY OF TOUCHING MY BABY BAOBAB TREE

Have you ever touched a three-day old Baobab tree? Not? Me neither; except for this morning, touching my own little big-tree. I now battle to think law, to think about my “mob-justice” matters and murder and serial rapists and so on. How difficult to think on the ConCourt’s latest judgment on the doctrine of common purpose; ten judges sitting; five in favour and five against.

What is now on my mind?

My baby baobab. Two days old.

Or, for that matter, have you ever touched a sprouting Franschhoek Oak tree [that is in all probabilities an off-spring of the South African oaks growing in Delville Wood cemetery, that in turn hails from our flagship botanical garden in Capetown, Kirstenbosch; the oaks there, were originally brought from France to my country during the 1600’s] and now growing in Rivonia where Nelson Mandela was hiding at Liliesleaf; my Oaks at just on 2 years old are far too small for anybody to hide under or to sit in its shade; I have to sustain them otherwise … no, I don’t want to think about the ”otherwise.”

Or, have you ever touched a baby Mopani tree sprouting somewhere?

Or a baby impala lily tree?

What about a sambokpeul-tree? Well, I don’t even know what it looks like, yet I am growing it.

All of these “babies,” except the Oaks, are a couple of days old. The oaks are almost just on 2 years old and doing well.

I am not a botanist, nor an arborealist or a gardener of longstanding. In fact, I am at 74 years a very young gardener: I only started gardening with five vegetables [tomatoes, basil and something else] on the 1st of January 2013. Later on, my gardener brought me five “Malawi-pumpkin seeds” that turned out to be ordinary butternuts and that, you can buy in abundance from your local grocer. The second lot were indeed from Malawi and I tended one that grew and grew and grew. During covid-19 lock down, I donated it to MES to make food for the street people: 15 kg pumpkin soup. Several others were averaging 7.5 kilos.

Then my sister, who lived in Wellington Western Cape passed on, and, on the way back from the funeral we stayed over at Franschhoek on a kind of a farm and that’s where I picked up the oak seeds.

My wife: “What are you doing?”

Me: “Picking up oaks.”

She: “What for?”

“To grow.”

“It grows slow and gets big.”

“I know.”

“The root system are huge and probably extremely invasive?”

“Yes.”

That was just more than two years ago and my five oaks are still babies standing on a home-made, tailor-made trestle-table for my maternity ward plants; during winter they lose their leaves, just like their big brothers and big sisters; come spring, they spring into life with new leaves just as their big brothers and sisters. The first seasonal change from summer to autumn, all their leaves fell off; I was heartily disappointed in myself; that was the definitive proof of me being a failure to grow oaks. My brother-in-law, put my mind at ease: “Don’t worry, that is what oak trees do in winter.”

Then we attended a 70th birthday party and met other oldies having a whale of a time with weird and wonderful stories and using cell phone cameras sending WhatsApp images to their children in New Zealand [or other places] bragging that we oldies can have parties and we can enjoy it; eating ice-cream, drinking coffee or perhaps tea, some even had rooibos. Some oldies were sharing pills that were prescribed by their doctors, whom are the best in South Africa, and helped them a lot; “you should try it as well, my brother tried it and it was spot on, try it.”.

Thea, her husband Pierre was officiating at our mutual friend’s wedding 45 years ago, was telling me how she collects seeds; always collecting; always stopping her vehicle to get out and to harvest seeds; not only collecting but cultivating them at the retirement village, later on planting them out into the wild. She re-introduced trees that were extinct, on her brother-in-law’s farm; new life sprouted around these indigenous trees and wildlife is returning to where they belong.

She sent me three different seeds using a very unwilling, recalcitrant “courier” an ex-professor in geology who promptly lost the seeds. “Who does she think she is to use me as a courier? I’ve got better things to do” [yes, he is an expert on searching classical music on youtube]. Renosterkoffie-tree, huilboerboon-tree and pronksterttuitpeulboom-tree [on the list of threatened trees]. Undaunted, she couriered other seeds, using a willing and well-paid courier and three days later I got them: VanWykshout-tree, sambokpeul-tree, kremetart [Baobab], adenium lily [impala lily], koraal-tree, mopani tree and a snail vine tree.

Now, my baobab seeds are starting to sprout, and already my friends are worried about the space it is going to fill: “You obviously forgot it is going to be gigantic?” I think their worries are unfounded and definitely pre-mature. My baobab is only two days old. Have a heart. And when my tree is an adult, I won’t be here to tend it. When this tree is mature, nobody who is alive now, will be around to look after my tree. When it reaches old age, nobody for the next 400 – 450 years will be around. Stop worrying. In the meantime, I would ask somebody to look after my trees: “Please cultivate my trees with a long-term view of life and of trees.”

Let’s get back to the baobab. I touched the sprout this morning. I am an ordinary guy who is intrigued by this thing we call LIFE. Life is very simple: you either grow a baobab in your backyard [aka a maternity ward], or you don’t. Easy and simple.  

What is so strange about growing an acorn from Franschhoek?

Is it strange to grow a baobab in “captivity”? Goodness knows where the seeds came from originally. What matters now is that it is growing in Rivonia Johannesburg and it is in its pot in my maternity ward among my other plants. My neighbour is kind to me; his angel’s trumpets are crouching over the boundary wall, guarding over it with its bright yellow trumpets that last a day or so – then others get the opportunity to guard over the very young baobab.

Looking on at this lot, I am flooded with emotions: can it be true? Can it be real that I am growing this tree? I have seen very young upside-down-trees in Zambia who look like teens hanging around in Hyde Park, sporting an iPhone – trying to look and act as if he/she is an adult. When I was driving past them in a rental car on my way to Kariba Dam to see for myself the dam that the Late Queen Elizabeth II visited in the 60’s, I never had the faintest of an idea that many years later I would grow some [I am still waiting for four seeds to sprout].

The story of a baobab? Do you really expect me to tell you that? No, I am not going to, because I know that you, my reader, have already asked Prof G. O. Ogle for an expert opinion. Or, if you use chatgpt, it gives you more than you can chew. How to grow a baobab from seed? How to tend it? And lots more. These artificial intelligence guys will tell you that you should soak the seeds in hot water overnight [how do you keep the water hot?]; I haven’t because, so my reasoning goes, it does not happen in the veld, so why should I do it? My seeds love me for not soaking them.

My neighbours angels trumpets

At this point, I am just basking in the sunlight shining on my two baobab seedlings and my five Franschhoek acorns and on my impala lily and my Vanwykshout-trees and my sambokpeul-trees and others that are still labouring under the crust of the soil to break free to see the light. Walking this morning in my maternity ward, I was welcomed by my neighbours bright yellow angels trumpets voluntary. If you worry about me and my trees, for instance where to plant it, I am of the opinion that you are pre-mature. Or, if not premature, why don’t you think SMALL for a change? That is what the Japanese are doing for centuries: thinking small then you are really thinking big.

All of a sudden it makes sense, not so?

If you are suffering from being a left brain-cerebral-type-only, click on this link for starters:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adansonia

Neels Coertse

Rivonia

Wednesday

23 October 2024

E-mail account: neelscoertse@wirelessza.co.za

 

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