To Mauritius and beyond
By Dermot Molloy
International Plant Propagators Society board members David Hancock, from Natural Area Nursery, WA, and Dermot Molloy from the Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria organised a field trip to Mauritius to assist nurseries with plant propagation and production. We also organised to attend the IPPS International conference in Stellenbosch, South Africa. After months of planning and contacting relevant companies in Mauritius and South Africa we headed off.
After arriving in the capital city of Mauritius, Port Louis, we had a free day to explore the historic city and the famous Caudan waterfront. Founded in 1638, Port Louis has an interesting history, originally settled by the Dutch, then the French and later the British. Port Louis is the second most important financial centre in Africa after Johannesburg.
Our first visit was to meet Vikash Tatayah, the Conservation Director at the Mauritian Wildlife Foundation. Since the 1970’s this foundation has developed protocols for the rescue of native fauna and flora species in Mauritius and surrounding islands. We had a great discussion regarding nursery construction, propagation, and environmental restoration. Vikash introduced us to his Flora Conservation Biologist, Giani Abajee, who agreed to take us on a field trip to Mondrain Nature Reserve. The reserve covers approximately 5ha of hillside and is located on the crown of the Vacoas Ridge in Western Mauritius. Mondrain is part of an extension project entitled ‘Promoting climate change actions through restoration, development of eco-tourism and participative activities’. This protected area contained rare and threatened species such as the critically endangered species Syzygium pyneei.
The next visit was to Endemika Nursery at Grand Baie to meet with Nursery Manager Saloni Soopramanien who was unfortunately unwell and could not attend. Commercial Manager Guillaume Lacoste and other senior managers conducted a tour of the nursery and an overview of the business. We provided propagation advice to the nursery team, introducing them to Clonex hormone, smoked water products and providing a more suitable recipe for their propagation mix. Then the team provided a fantastic Mauritian lunch and a tour of a revegetation site which included a mangrove wetland boardwalk. On our return we visited Pamplemousses Botanic Garden near Port Louis. This is a fantastic garden with great palm collections and is the oldest botanic garden in the Southern Hemisphere.
On our last day we teamed up with a group from Western Australia and drove to the Southwest of the island. We visited Curiosity Corner, the famous Seven Coloured Sands, and La Cascade de Chamarel which is the highest waterfall in Mauritius.
We then flew from Port Louis to Cape Town and had a free day to visit the Waterfront market, explored the sights on a guided bus tour of Cape Town and the Southern Cape coastline.
The IPPS International conference was held in Stellenbosch, a town in the Western Cape, South Africa. Stellenbosch is a university town surrounded by vineyards and the nature reserves of Jonkershoek and Simonsberg. The conference had a great line-up of international speakers, including Tom Saunders, our IPPS Chair and Treasurer, talking about his family’s business and how it has evolved over the years, Andy de Wet on the breeding of endemic South African plants, and Gayle Suttle from Microplant Nurseries in Oregon telling her story of lessons learnt over 43 years of micropropagation.
The conference also had fantastic nursery and garden visits including. Bristle Nursery specialising in propagation of fynbos for the restoration of natural spaces, Samgro, a wholesale nursery, growing a broad range of general lines, and Fall Creek Nursery who had a state-of-the-art production facility growing blueberries.
We then visited Babylonstoren which is one of the oldest Cape Dutch farms, set at the foot of Simonsberg in the Franschhoek wine valley. It has fruit and vegetable gardens of extraordinary beauty and diversity, and was a highlight of the conference tours.
We flew to Johannesburg to catch up with IPPS member Erika Oberholzer and had a tour of her wonderful nursery Pico Gro. Erika’s nursery grows a myriad of microgreens and edible flowers and exports them to the world.
We had a wonderful time in Mauritius and South Africa and met wonderful new friends and caught up with old friends.
Dermot Molloy
Senior Curator Horticulture
Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria