Gardening Challenges in 2020

Before we could blink,  the year 2019 was gone! We suddenly find ourselves in the middle of January 2020, and it doesn’t look like  a year for the fainthearted. Environmental, economic and political turmoil is all around us.

It’s a good thing we can escape all of that in our gardens, be it an acre of land or a potted balcony. It is here, between our beloved plants, the singing of birds and the buzzing of bees that we can find a respite from our daily doom and gloom. Speaking of gloom, at least we do not need our infamous electricity supplier’s assistance in order to garden. A regular customer at one of our stores recently remarked that she schedules her gardening times according to the load shedding schedule. By using your elbow grease in your garden you are reducing your carbon footprint on our pining planet. Gardening is a cheap way of getting rid of stress. So get stuck into that garden with your spades (available at Gardenshop), shears (of course also available from Gardenshop) and manually operated lawnmower (available from GardenShop on order) and create your own haven of peace and tranquillity.

This reminds me of another very exciting gardening challenge that is trending on social media this year; The Spekboom Challenge. (#Spekboomchallenge)

The challenge is to encourage as many people as possible to plant Spekboom (Portulicaria afra). Why Spekboom, one asks? One mature Spekboom can process 4-8 kg’s of carbon dioxide, making it 100 times more effective as compared to one Pine Tree. One hectare of mature Spekboom is 100 times more effective in processing carbon dioxide than one hectre of the Amazon Rain Forest.

Spekboom is indigenous, has great nutritional value for livestock and humans, and it even has great medicinal properties.

So meet the challenge! Plant 10 Spekboom this year – which are of course available at your nearest GardenShop.