Not many people know that the beautiful fields of purple/pink flowers along our roadsides, in our gardens and on cultivated land is an invasive weed. Because of its beautiful flowers, they think it is harmless and beautiful. But it is not!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Echium plantagineum, commonly known as Patterson’s curse, is a deep-rooted biennial native to Europe, Northern Africa and Asia. It was initially introduced to South Africa as an ornamental plant, and it fell in love with our Mediterranean climate. This long flowering biennial likes dry, sunny sites with poor soil.
The plant starts as a flat rosette of leaves and will grow up to 1 metre tall. From October to April, purple, lavender, pink and even white flowers appear. It produces a terrifying amount of seed, and as soon as the winter rain starts, the seeds begin to germinate. Patterson’s curse has become naturalised and is capable of reproducing and spreading without the assistance of people. The seeds are primarily distributed by wind, and most seeds germinate in the first year, but the seed can survive for as long as five years.
This rapid spread of the weed in areas home to horses, sheep and cattle is a big problem for the owners of these animals. Patterson’s curse produces purrolizidine alkaloides, as a defence mechanism against insect herbivores (moths, weevils, gall wasps, etc.). When eaten by animals in large quantities, it can causes death due to liver damage. Because the alkaloids can be found in the nectar of the plants, the honey should be blended with other kinds of honey to dilute the toxins. They also poison the soil with the alkaloid preventing further growth by other plants except themselves.
The leaves and stems are covered with coarse, white hairs that can irritate the skin of humans and animals.
Echium plantagineum
Controlling Patterson’s curse:
According to Invasive Species of South Africa, Patterson’s curse is listed as a category one invader plant. Furthermore, according to the Conservation of Agriculture Resource Act of 1983, plants must be removed and destroyed immediately, and trading of the plant is prohibited.
Controlling the plant is very difficult as it flowers and seeds from October to April. The most effective way to control the weed is a combination of mechanical and chemical methods. However, both methods are costly and not always possible to implement. Small infestations can be carried out by hand and is best to remove before it sets seed. Remember to wear gloves and long sleeves and use a weeder tool like a handheld fork.
Patterson’s curse is a wolf in sheep’s clothing because of its beautiful flowers. It must be controlled and eradicated where possible. Please help us spread awareness!!
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Although healthy plants are easy to maintain in suitable soil and climate, they occasionally need protection against pests. Like people, if feeling poorly, a plant has a way of letting you know what is wrong. Leaves may droop, holes may appear, or growth may stop. A quick, accurate diagnosis is half the battle in controlling the problem before it gets out of hand.
Please continue to read to discover the most common pest in our gardens and easy remedies for beautiful plants.
Mealy Bugs
White woolly spots appear on stems, at junctions of stems and leaves, generally in any area hidden from bright light. Mealy bugs are insects covered with white powdery wax and suck plant juices from the plants. They excrete honeydew on which a sooty black fungus may form.
Easy remedy: when there are only a few, dip a cotton wool earbud in alcohol or methylated spirits and rub them off. For heavier infestation, spray the plants with soapy (Sunlight Liquid) water.
Red Spider Mite and your plants
Leaves show pale yellow speckles, then slowly turning yellow, and in time the plants become stunted and die. These eight-legged pests are a particular nuisance during dry, hot periods. They are small and red, hardly visible, and live under the leaves spinning delicate white webs. They feed by sucking the sap from the plants.
Control by a direct spray with water from a garden hose pipe.
Aphids:
These tiny plant lice are about 3 mm long and can be green, brown or black, and assemble on soft young tips or leaves’ underside. They are usually wingless and suck the plant’s sap. They cause leaves and buds to wither and stunt the growth of the plants. Leaves and stems become shiny and sticky to the touch. Aphids are generally active when days are hot and nights are cool.
Control aphids by picking them off or knocking them off with a strong water stream of a garden hose pipe.
Scale:
When your plant becomes stunted and stems and leaves are often sticky to the touch, look on leaves’ underside and plant stems. Your plants are probably infested with scale. Their yellowish (when young) or brown colour makes them hard to see until the infestation is severe. They look like small oval shells and assemble in dense colonies where they sap the plant’s strength by sucking its juices. Scale also excretes a mould forming honeydew.
Control by gently scrub the scale off the leaves and stems using a cotton wool earbud dipped in alcohol or methylated spirits.
Caterpillars:
Caterpillars are the larvae of butterflies and moths and often show up in our gardens in late summer and early autumn. They can ravage plant leaves but they’ll usually stick to one kind of plant. They are a very hungry and mostly unwelcome guest in the garden, especially on plants like arum lilies, Clivias and Agapanthus. They will eat holes in your leaves, typically overnight. They do have plenty of natural predators like wasps and birds.
Control caterpillars by picking them off your plants and looking for their eggs on the leaves’ underside, and removing them with a strong flush of water.
If all else fails
If flushing with water or swapping pest with a cotton wool earbud does not help, contact your nursery for an organic spray. Heavy infestations sometimes need harsher intervention but always avoid insecticides that might kill beneficial insects and pollinators like bees. We need them for a healthy earth.
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Euryops is an indigenous plant group from the Cape for the Cape. Winters in the Cape can be wet, windy and cold but with Euryops in your garden, your day will be filled with warmth and colour.
Euryops is a group of evergreen, hardy and bushy shrubs that grow fast, and are wind and frost resistant. They need a sunny position and will tolerate some semi-shade but will flower less. Plant them in well-drained loamy soil that contains plenty of compost. They are good landscaping plants where colour is needed, and because they are fast-growing, they quickly fill a gap in any sunny position. They are great plants for mixed borders, mass planting and rockeries. Euryops are low maintenance and only need pruning after flowering in spring to keep its shape. Also, every 2 to 3 years prune back hard to keep plants from becoming woody. In spring, give a good layer of compost, especially in coastal gardens.
Euryops are free-flowering shrubs that attract birds, bees and butterflies to any garden with the flowers also lasting some time in a vase.
Euryops pectinatus:
Common name: Golden Daisy Bush or Harpuisbos (afrikaans)
It is the shorter more compact growing Euryops with attractive, soft grey-green foliage and bigger, yellow, daisy-like flowers throughout the year but more in winter and spring. The flowers stand above the foliage, making it a striking eye-catcher specimen in any garden. Deadheading will help to prolong the flowering season.
Euryops virgineus:
Common name: Honey Daisy
The common name says it all of this Euryops. When flowering, it smells like a pot of honey and hundreds of bees will hover around the bush. Euryops virgineus’ foliage is a fine, dark green, fern-like foliage and at the end of winter hundreds of small yellow flowers will cover the plants for weeks.
If you need an indigenous plant with little fuss and a lot of joy, then Euryops is the plant for you.
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People have practised natural medicine for centuries before modern technology, and it is still used throughout the world for health promotion and for the treatment of diseases. Medicinal plants are more affordable than conventional medicine, easy to obtain, more cost-effective, has fewer side effects, and they utilise the body’s natural healing process, especially succulents.
It is important to remember that you should always double-check with your doctor before consuming anything new for your body. Also, refrain from using any pesticides or any harmful chemicals on your plants because you don’t want any of those chemicals in or on your body.
Sempervivum tectorum
Common name:
House leek, Hens and chickens
This low
growing rosette-forming succulent, from native Europe, has juice and leaves which
have been used in folk remedies for centuries. It has anti-inflammatory,
diuretic (increases the amount of water and is expelled from the body as urine)
and astringent (helps body tissues to shrink) properties. Sempervivum is
firstly famous for its skin treatment like burns, sunburn, swelling, scratches,
insect bites and abrasions by using the juicy fluid from the leaves. Secondly,
for earache. Here you can use cotton wool, soaked in the juice of the leaves of
Sempervivum, and leave it in the ear for several hours. For side effects, please
note some people can be allergic.
Interestingly,
Romans used to plant Sempervivum in front of the windows of their houses
because they believed the plant was a love medicine.
Portulaca afra
Common name:
Spekboom
This wonder plant of South Africa has leaves which are thirst-quenching and will help with over-exhaustion, heatstroke and dehydration. This is a helpful trick for hikers and mountain climbers as this shrub occur naturally on rocky hillsides in the Karoo. The leaf is chewed and sucked and can also be used as a treatment for sore throats and mouth infections. Rubbing the leaf juice over blisters and corns helps to soothe and heal them too. The antiseptic leaf juicy is also good for treating acne, rashes, insect bites and sunburn.
Additionally, these succulents are a valuable stock food and can be used in your salad.
Crassula ovata
Crassula ovata
Common name:
Jade Plant, Lucky Plant
Crassula ovata
is not a major alternate medicinal plant but is recommended for warts. A leaf is
cut open and the moist flesh is bound over the wart for several days with a
plaster over it. Should the treatment be successful, the wart will fall off. It
is also used for treating corns.
Cotyledon
orbiculata
Common name:
Plakkie, Pig’s Ear
The leaves of this beautiful grey-leaved shrub with its orange-red tubular flower can be pulped and hot water poured over it, then drained and used as a poultice (a soft, moist mass applied to the body and kept in place with a cloth) for drawing infection out of wounds and sores. You can also place a piece of the leave that has been scraped, over a wart and secure it with a plaster for up to 2 weeks. This treatment softens the wart and the wart should fall out. Warmed leaves applied to boils, abscesses, corns and also blisters can also be treated.
Crassula muscosa
Crassula muscosa
Common name:
Lizard Tail, Skoenveterplakkie
This highly
recognisable plant with its exciting architectural leaves and minute yellow
flowers during summer are medicinally used to treat abdominal pain and
diarrhoea. Infusions of the plant can be made but must be used sparingly.
Always remember it can be dangerous to use succulents as medicine
without the supervision of someone who knows what he or she is doing, or
without the knowledge of your doctor. I hope everybody will look with new eyes at
succulents.
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With the growing interest in plant-based remedies as a source for commercial products, such as medicinal and beauty products, I started thinking back to my childhood. Growing up on a farm, plants were an integral part of our lives, especially succulents. We always took long walks through the veld and so got to know the wild plants. We learnt their names (or rather their common names), and their use in and around our house. Names like “agdaegeneesbosie” or “khakibos” were well known and well used in and around our home. My parents both were avid gardeners and over the years taught us to see the beauty of each flower, leaf and seed. They inspired us to observe and to appreciate. From the older workers on the farm, we learned how to use and recognise plants for medicinal uses. Such as the Aloe species, Carpobrotus (sour fig) or Cotyledon (pig’s ears).
Traditional medicine is the oldest form of health care in the world. It is used in the prevention and treatment of illnesses. The study of plants (ethnobotany = study of plants by local people) is still relatively new in South Africa. However, it needs documentation before it is lost for future generations. South Africa is exceptionally rich in plant diversity with many people using a wide variety of plants daily for medicine and other necessities of life.
Writing about the medicinal use of succulents is not necessarily to encourage people to use them as medicine, but to encourage people to look with new eyes at our succulents. Also, to awaken more respect for these easy to grow plants and the role they play in people’s daily lives.
Aloe vera
ALWAYS remember it can be dangerous to use veld medicine without the supervision
of someone who knows what they are doing. Untold harm can be done if dosages
and plants are not correctly used or identified.
Let’s start with the humble Aloe species, well known to all of us and also easy to find.
Aloe vera
Easy to grow!
Aloe vera is easy to grow and has been known for it’s healing properties for hundreds of years. It has been used to help to treat wounds, haemorrhoids, sunburn and digestive issues. Aloe vera plants are always a big favourite with gardeners because of its beauty, and also for its use in the house. These days its juice is used in cosmetics and personal care products such as soap, shaving cream, and suntan lotion. Useful parts of Aloes are the latex and the gel. The gel is from the centre of the leaves and speeds up healing wounds by improving blood circulation and preventing cell death around the wound. Latex is obtained from the cells just beneath the leaf skin and contains chemicals that work as a laxative.
Aloe arborescens (krans-aloe)
A real stunner!
Aloe arborescens is a popular garden subject and a real stunner with its bright orange flowers in winter. The gel extracted from its leaves are been widely used to treat wounds and burns. It also has anti-inflammatory and anti-bacterial effects.
Aloe ferox
Bright fiery red flowers
Aloe ferox or bitter aloe is not only known for its bright fiery red flowers in winter but also for its juice as a strong purgative for both human and animal. It is also used to treat arthritis, eczema, hypertension, stress and high cholesterol. The leaves or roots boiled in water are used for these. The leave sap can be used for skin irritation bruises, burns and also wound healing. Aloe ferox can also be used to rid animals of ticks. It is an important export commodity and is used as an ingredient in several medicines, including the famous “Lewens Essence” and “Schwedens Bitters”. Aloe ferox was introduced to the early Dutch settlers by local tribes, and is still used, and is also considered South Africa’s main wild-harvested commercially traded species.
I hope you enjoyed learning about the medicinal value of succulents, Aloe and will look with new eyes at them when you walk past.
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