Showing posts with label black wattle. Show all posts
Showing posts with label black wattle. Show all posts

Friday, May 7, 2010

Black Wattles in Tarlton - SOLD

The creation of a thousand forests is in one acorn.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Black Wattles in Tarlton" - watercolour on Moleskine 200gsm - Maree©
Size - 12" x 8" unframed - SOLD

The Black Wattle trees on our smallholding in Tarlton, Gauteng, South Africa, which we are trying our utmost to eradicate, have put up the most spectacular show of browns with their millions of seed-pods in between the greens. How can we even begin to think to destroy such beauty? Yet, for the survival of our own indigenous flora, it is a task we undertake every year in a bid to save some of our own natural growth.

Read more about the Black Wattle struggle HERE.




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Thursday, January 28, 2010

Blue Gums & Black Wattles - Acrylic SOLD

God has cared for these trees, saved them from drought, disease,
avalanches, and a thousand tempests and floods.
But he cannot save them from fools.
- John Muir

"Blue Gum and Black Wattle trees" Acrylic on Bockingford 300gsm watercolour paper - Maree©
SIZE : 11" x 7.5" - unframed - SOLD

In this painting I experimented with acrylics on a good, thick Bockingford watercolour paper and decided I just LOVE how the acrylics feel on the paper. It's amazing! I think I'm falling more and more in love with this versatile medium.

These trees are on our smallholding and although we are trying to get rid of all the Black Wattles, they spring up faster than you try to eradicate them. The problem is that they produce a huge amount of seeds, which can grow in the most arid and infertile of soils. Even worse, these seeds can live up to a 90 years. And after a first clean-up, even though you have removed hundreds of trees, millions of young seedling appear. It's basically fighting a losing battle. These evergreen trees were originally imported from Australia for our tanning industry.

Now the touchy subject: chemicals. One simply cannot get rid of Black Wattles unless you use a good herbicide. Cutting a black wattle and hoping it will die, is wishful thinking. We do not use any chemicals at all, with the result that we have an on-going battle, but which provides employment opportunities as we hire several casual workers every year to do another clean-up.

The spreading growing habit of the Black Wattle

The flowers of the Black Wattle also causes great outbreaks of hay fever among hay fever sufferers during spring.


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