Cobra lilly planting at our priority sites

Apr 02, 2018

Last year we collected a couple hundred cobra lilly bulbs from various locations. These bulbs, Chasmanthe floribunda, turn into a beautiful lilly with a spectacular flower over the winter period. They go dormant during summer, when they die back completely. This makes the bulbs especially useful to store and transport to new locations over this period, because there is no plant to take care of.

Early April we decided to plant out these bulbs at strategic locations. We have defined various priority sites for the year, roughly forming a corridor along the Liesbeek River, so we distributed these bulbs over various sites where they were planted in small clusters, of 5-10 bulbs in a small patch.

We hope that these bulbs will come up in the coming weeks. At several places, including Ryan Road Park, we have planted sour fig in the past months, which replace the invasive and aggresive grass, and which in theory makes the plot more suitable to indigenous vegetation. We planted various cobra lillies in between the sour fig, so we can see if this strategy works!

We planted the chasmanthe at the following sites:

• Ryan Road Park
• Koornhoop Corner
• Sans Souci Bridge Patch
• Site #60 (planted here last week by Friends of the Liesbeek)
• Site #16
• Site #21

Keep an eye out for these lillies in the coming months!