PlantLife SA, Volume 49.7, July 2020. Verging on the Panicum

Verging on the Panicum; how road verges might be managed

text and photographs (unless otherwise stated) by 

Geoff Nichols.

Gladiolus dalenii growing on the verge of the M13 in Westville, KZN. (Photo R Boon)

The Covid 19 pandemic has made us all sit up and assess how we manage our lives and even our livelihoods. The initial shock of being isolated in our homes with nowhere to go was a blow for many of us. On the other hand, for those fortunate to have a garden or even plants to care for, it meant there was more time for tending plants that would not be available during the conventional 8 to 5 working day. Vegetable growing suddenly became fashionable again when we were not able to access supermarkets or shops to purchase fresh fruit and vegetables.  In my garden I gave up growing vegetables many years back due to the predations of monkeys, mole-rats and porcupines but I have kept all my fruit trees, mango, 10 avocado trees, Surinam cherry, orange, lemon and naartjie, banana, golden apple, granadilla and the roseleaf bramble.

My garden showing a mixture of Avocado trees in flower, Bananas, Aloe pluridens and banks of Dicliptera cernua

Outside my property is a verge that I mow once a week in summer and once a month in winter.  On the KwaZulu-Natal south coast we get enough heat, moisture and sunlight in winter for the grass to grow a little so that it needs a touch of the mower to keep it neat and tidy. However, across the road the common verge is tended occasionally by the local municipality. It gets a monthly cut under normal conditions but has not been maintained during the lockdown from the end of March to the end of June 2020. This verge has been left in peace to grow, flower and seed. Until the beginning of June our freeway verges were also left unmown.

Verge before 23 May 2020

Verge after 12 July 2020

In Port Shepstone there is a verge I see on my regular visits to town to purchase provisions. This verge too has been allowed to grow out and be productive for the local wildlife.

Port Shepstone verge left for about a month without being mown showing Gazania krebsiana and Asystasia gangetica, amongst others.

Along the freeways and provincial roads the verges have become wildlife refuges and feeding areas with flocks of seed-eating birds rising in clouds above the seeding grasses when vehicles pass too close, not to mention the tiny native rodents that inhabit these seed-rich environments.

Aloe maculata growing near Bazely, an east-facing bank. Note how a veld fire had already burnt the bank and the aloes still were flowering.

My plea to the authorities is to mow less verge and road cutting banks to allow the grasses and other plants to flower, seed and fruit, which will provide food for the local wildlife and in some cases humans. These environments can provide homes for our fauna and flora which are now forced into the fragments that are left after we have modified the areas we live in to our own needs. How about managing the huge resource of verges on the main arterial roads in the province by mowing only the first two or maybe three metres from the edge of the carriageway? This will give motorists the space to pull off the sealed road surface in an emergency. Leave the rest of the road reserve alone for 11 months of the year. Only mow, brush cut or burn this part of the verge in the plants’ dormant season when they have flowered and fruited, allowing the seed to be spread in the normal manner by wind, birds, mammals and or other fauna in the immediate vicinity.

Imagine how many hundreds of thousands of litres of fuel we would save the system by not mowing every two months. The efforts of the contractors and their labour could be redirected to maintaining the drains and removing litter as well as introduced invasive plant weeds that colonize the predominantly open grassland verges. In areas where the roads run through bushveld or forest and even swamps or wetlands, allow the original vegetation to return, manage the introduced invasive plants and keep the local woody species away from the carriageway at the distance that the road safety ordinance prescribes in law.

The central medians of our main freeways in KwaZulu-Natal, namely the N1, N2 and N3, could be the scenic links between our various provincial tourist destinations. The linear fragments could be enhanced to provide more attractive links between towns along the route. One of the best entrances into any city in South Africa is the M4 provincial road between Durban North and Umhlanga Rocks. The illusion of forest is what attracts the human eye either entering or leaving Durban. Even the scent of the river Climbing Thorn Senegalia schweinfurthii root bacteria wafts into the corridor, especially in the early mornings and late evenings, reminding us of how the bushveld and forests smelled before human development.

 The M4 provincial road entrance to Durban from the north is one of the best verge approaches to a city in the country. The thin strip of forest about 50m wide still creates the illusion of coastal forest.

Fire could be used to manage the stretches of grassland verges. However, for many years the contractors along the south coast of KZN have been baling the cut grass and taking it away to use as livestock fodder. I have even used these bales for rehabilitation projects that I was involved with, by loading two bales on my bakkie at a time to use as a mulch to hold the soil on disturbed areas that had to be revegetated.

 Hay bales being loaded onto my truck to be used for a rehabilitation project in the Durban area.

In the past I have used these swards of grasses to collect seedheads for providing me with the locally growing grasses for my projects. But I have to get my timing right and my rule of thumb is when you see the seedheads are nearly ripe, then stop and collect. Otherwise the next time you pass, the brushcutters and slasher tractor mounted mowers have already cut the grass. A one kilometre stretch of grass heads in full seed typically contained the following grass species: Eragrostis capensis, E. curvula, E. plana, Panicum maximum, Sporobolus africanus, S. pyrimidalis, Chloris gayana, C. virgata, Elionurus muticus, Melica racemosa, Setaria sphacelata, S. megaphylla, Digitaria natalensis, D. eriantha, Themeda triandra, Hyparrhenia sp., Cymbopogon nardus, Andropogon eucomus, Alloteropsis semialata, Heteropogon contortus, Aristida junciformis, Miscanthus ecklonii, Melinis repens, M. nerviglumis and M. minutiflorus.  All these can provide thousands of seeds if collected at the right stage of maturity.

 The N2 near Scottburgh with a rich diversity of plants but cutting at the wrong time of the year diminishes the seed set on this section of verge.

We also have a range of soft non-woody herbaceous and succulent plants that occur in amongst these grasses.

 Indigofera eriocarpa is a real show on the N2 south just south of the Magabeni offramp

The species that occur commonly in coastal KZN are Indigofera arrecta, I. tristis, I. eriocarpa, Crotalaria pallida, C. lanceolata, C. natalensis, Laggera crispata, Helichrysum cymosum, H. kraussii, H. ruderale, H. panduratum, H. cooperi, Leonotis intermedia, L. ocymifolia, L. leonurus, Phymaspermum acerosum, Eulophia speciosa, Dicliptera cernua, Hypoxis hemerocallidea, Hypoestes aristata, H. forskaolii, Justicia betonica, J. flava, J. protracta, Asystasia gangetica, Aristea woodii, A. ecklonii, Gladiolus dalenii, Gazania krebsiana, G. linearis, Aloe ferox, A. marlothii, A. spectabilis, A. arborescens, A. maculata, A. cooperi, A. umfoloziensis and A. pruinosa.  All these plants are able to withstand the annual burn by either having scattered their seeds before the fire or resprouting after the fire. Near Scottburgh on the N2 banks west of the T.C, Robertson Nature Reserve, many of the plants mentioned above still are able to survive the brushcutters.

The N2 North just past the Port Durnford offramp is a sight in spring and early summer with many grassland herbaceous plants like the Helichrysum ruderale and Wahlenbergia grandiflora.

The species mentioned above are a preliminary list of what can be grown and they are out there, providing much needed resources for the many insects and other forms of life that rely on the leaves, stems, flowers and fruits of these plants for their livelihoods. This works as long as there is a sufficient number of plants to supply the life requisites of each of the organisms through all stages of their lifecycles. Yes, there is the danger of having more road kill due to the fauna crossing the roads to forage for food but if there is little or no other food available, the fauna does not have much of a choice between starvation and survival. My friend and mentor Ben Breedlove, who developed the Feeding, Breeding, Nesting and Resting system of habitat design, has always said that we as humans are now ‘farming fragments of habitat’. In my opinion, the management of verges throughout the many thousands of kilometres of roadways in KZN and across the whole of South Africa should be changing current practices to increase the habitat functionality and productivity of the verges from the present estimate of about 20% to at least 50-70%.

High summer with many grass species in flower or seed near the Pennington offramp on the N2 south.

About the author: 

Geoff Nichols worked in the Durban Parks Department for 21 years and has diplomas in agriculture, horticulture and parks and recreation administration. He pioneered the growing of indigenous medicinal plants at the Silverglen Medicinal Plant Nursery. His interest in indigenous gardening and reintroducing native plants to the urban environment resulted in the birth of his own horticultural consultancy in 1996 and the development of the habitat gardening concept.