h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Hi! I found your page by browsing the Who's Online list, and I just want to say hello to you! I am a guy who's also very interested in gardening! I live in South Africa, and I cultivate indigenous South African plants ... unquestionably, species you've never heard about! I am trying to popularise their use in gardens over here, and inform more people about them. I love nature in general!

I'm also very artistic - I paint and draw and would like to make music someday!

Righty! I hope to be seeing you around!

Willem

Hi there Willem

I'd love to be able to grow some of your lovely South African plants but I fear that my boggy, frost pocket in the north of England would freeze their little socks off.

I did have some osteospermums but they died in the cold damp winters. The most exotic things I have in the garden are a Myrtle which really shouldn't survive but somehow does and a Cornish Palm which would really rather be in Cornwall but doesn't seem to be doing too badly.

The garden used to be sheltered by a lovely old, mellow brick wall but the neighbour in the yard behind the house pulled it down and we couldn't do a thing about it. She's not replaced it with anything yet and although she claims to be a landscape gardener the yard is full of weeds including the dreaded Japanese Knotweed. That and the winter have put me off gardening at the moment which is a shame because it's good exercise and therapy for the weary mind too. Concentrating on the indoor plants and may make up some bottle gardens as I have found some lovely old jars which are stored in the garage.

What sort of things do you do artistically? I have two very artistic sons so the house is full of the smell of oil paint/thinners and covered in mod-roc and clay!

Well, I believe in indigenous gardening everywhere ... which means planting the plants that are native to the country, because they grow best there and also they are part of the local ecology and will attract birds and other wildlife! So, in Britain, British plants and in America, American plants and so forth. I am very into wildlife gardening ... we have had quite a large number of interesting creatures in out garden already!

What I do artistically? Mostly paining, and sketching. I also like photography! I am currently building a website featuring my art, but right now I'm not getting through to it!

What is mod-roc?

Hi

You are right about having local plants in gardens. We've got quite a few plants which attract in the wildlife (such as it is in the middle of big town). Also lots of bird feeders in the winter - but we get quite a lot of squirrels in stealing the nuts. You can't be cross with them though as they are very cute.

We built a wildlife pond a few years back and it's very successful, there are loads of frogs and other mini wildlife in it. Just wish we'd dug it bigger as it is now covered over with loads of plants. It's iced over at the moment as it's very cold.

My elder son was out in the garage today painting - it's so cold out there but he doesn't want the smell of the paint thinners in the house. He's studying photography too and hopes to go to college soon.

Mod roc is a sort of roll of bandage type material impregnated with plaster of paris (similar to what they use in hospitals on broken limbs) you can unwind it, dip it in water and stick it onto chicken wire frames to make sculptures. He's making sculptures of weird animals and carniverous plants.

What sort of wildlife do you get in your garden? (Imagining elephants, lions etc

Yay for wildlife gardens with native plants!

What sorta wildlife? Well, mostly birds ... quite a huge list of species have visited already! Then, reptiles: skinks, geckoes, agamas (but we haven't had any of those in quite a long while), girdled lizards, chameleons, tortoises (also not in a long while), and some snakes - brown house snakes, bush snakes, and thread snakes. They are all totally harmless. The thread snake is the size of a moderately large earthworm, and it burrows around in loose soil! Then, amphibians: rain frogs (huge numbers are *resident* in our garden), red toads, olive toads, guttural toads, and *once* a bubbling kassina. I used to have clawed toads in a pond, also. And mammals: field mice and shrews; once a huge influx of 'swamp rats' (I don't know the proper English name - they are big, with short faces and tails) - our cats had a feast. They did not enter the house. I personally don't mind the wild rodents ... I only worry about house mice and rats. We also have molerats, on occasion. Welcome visitors include hedgehogs ... there have been some here a few times. Once we had a mongoose here for a while! I would like to have squirrels ... but there aren't many around here, and the ones we have here don't come into cities. But anyways, our yard is too small to attract bigger animals. But I like the small ones! The smallest are the insects ... and we have a *huge* variety here! Too many to mention here! I don't see them as pests ... some of them eat my plants, but there are cuckoos to eat the pesky caterpillars, and ladybugs to eat the aphids.

Anyways, I know mod roc ... I just didn't know the name!

I use acryllic paints. No paint thinners needed. They dry more quickly than oils ... and I can get either a watercolor wash effect, or a layer-upon-layer oil-like effect with it.