Flower power

Dominic Touwen talks about the thriving meadows at La Cotte and letting nature take its course.

‘Wildflower meadows are not as easy as they look, especially in the Western Cape. To thrive, they require a base layer of non-invasive grasses. Decent indigenous ones are African lovegrass ( Eragrostis curvula) and Aristida junciformis. At La Cotte, we seed other festuca grasses such as chewings fescue and sheep fescue as these varieties allow wildflowers to pop up in between them. We plant a mix of delicate flowers such as Queen Anne’s lace ( Daucus carota), ox-eye daisies ( Leucanthemum vulgare), lesser knapweed ( Centaurea nigra), widow’s trefoil and salad burnet. The meadow is irrigated in late spring and left to its own devices in summer. We have a laissez-faire attitude to ‘weeds’ such as common dandelions and tongblaar because their flowers provide such great food for pollinators. Once all the seeds have set, around midsummer, the entire meadow is mowed. Then, the cuttings are left to provide green manure and mulch for the cycle to begin again. Interestingly, in Europe and the United Kingdom, cuttings are removed in an attempt to reduce soil fertility – of course, we don’t have that problem!’ 8