Nestled away in the arid landscape of the Karoo past Touwsriver, you will find a stone cottage so idyllic, you’d want to leave behind the city lights and become a permanent mountain dweller.
This project was awarded a SALI Silver Award of Excellence in 2019.
The Karoo is known for its arid landscape where the days can become very hot and the nights very cold.
Having no trees in the area, our client recognised the need to add shade and aesthetic quality to his home in the mountainside. Not only is this the “Green” option, but also adds character to the beauty of the landscape.
Making this dream a reality was our mission and after careful consultation with the professional Arborist and owner of Trees SA, Dag Willems, we selected the suitable tree species that would successfully establish in the Karoo mountains.
Trees SA doesn’t do anything small (including our trees) and therefore had to face the logistical challenge of transporting these massive trees from Stellenbosch to Touwsriver, and then on a 14km 4×4 track to reach their new destination! We turned quite a few heads as we travelled on the N1 with a fleet of vehicles all carrying precious cargo: trees! The fleet consisted of 2 x Superlink trucks, 2 x 8ton crane trucks, 1 x 8ton truck and trailer, and 1 x bakkie and trailer.
A project of this large scale, needs a sufficiently large quantity of trees to match. And our client came to the table by purchasing a total of 173 trees, which in turn we successfully selected, transported, installed and established in the Karoo. Two trips in September and November 2009 along with a record-breaking short time of 4 days of installation resulted in the first phase of the project’s success.
The second phase is the crucial installation of an automated custom designed drip irrigation system (by Trees SA) along with aftercare visits to ensure the health and growth of the trees. After only 1 year, the trees have already started to flourish.
March 2018 visit (9 years after the installation)
WOW!
We went back to the beautiful Slanghoek cottages to visit our trees, and we could barely recognise them because they have grown so much! The pictures below speak for itself. Wow!
We can now confidently confirm that the tree establishment was a huge success and have become independent from the irrigation system.
We are the Mature Tree Experts.
