Bulelwa Maqula carefully staples a piece of moss on to a vine cutting, securing an orchid seedling to the bark. After this, it is labelled and hung up, established and is then ready to be sold.

It’s early days yet, and Maqula and her co-workers in the Londolozani Orchid Legacy Project are still finding their way around the business of propagating and selling exquisite and sometimes rare indigenous orchids, all of which have been artificially propagated from orchids in private collections.

It’s never been done before, and the project make these beautiful plants available on the local market, contributing to their conservation and the sustainable livelihoods of these women from Khayelitsha and Gugulethu.

It’s much more than just conservation: Londolozani is a project which provides entrepreneurship and skills training to a group of mostly women, with the hope that they can then start their own small businesses as orchid farmers, creating sustainable livelihoods.

The project, part of the Orchid Legacy Project, has many parts and many partners.

Maqula and six others, have been trained by Mike Tibbs, chairman of the Cape Orchid Society and owner of The Exotic Plant Company (TEPC), in propagation methods. They are now working from a greenhouse at the Helderberg Nature Reserve.

The Orchid Society, TEPC and King plants will provide the initial plants, which will all be South African and African orchids (many of our indigenous orchids are endangered); and the new farmers will continue to propagate them.

There is already a substantial market in three-week-old plants from the laboratory, so the women will not have to wait for years or even months for the opportunity to earn money and contribute to conservation.

The project is Tibbs’s brainchild, and is funded by the Cape Orchid Society, the City of Cape Town, TEPC and King plants.

Co-ordinating the women is Lillian Masebenza. She runs Mhani Gingi, a social entrepreneurial network. While working at Old Mutual in financial marketing and communications, she identified the need to get small businesses into the mainstream.

“The challenge is how to grow a sustainable project or business, and take it forward. My concept is to mobilise women specifically, and create partnerships with people who want to take up the challenge. For example, our vehicle broke down today – two of our members are stranded. It would be great if someone would partner us and donate a vehicle.”

The women currently work three days a week – once the project is running and the orchids are available at the reserve for sale, she’d like to set up a place where they can also do beadwork, embroidery and needlework with an orchid theme.

“The project is focusing, for now, on a few epiphytic orchids, Aerangis modesta, A fuscata, and A.mystacidii,” says Frida Vesterberg from the City of Cape Town’s environmental management project.

“They’re very hardy and they’re collectors’ items. We’ve taken on the project because we see the sustainability of it.”

Indigenous orchids are not easy to come by, says Tibbs. A lot are in private collections, he explains.

“We also work closely with CapeNature and are called in to rescue plants before the bulldozers go in,” says Tibbs who will be donating his plant stock for propagation.

The orchid seeds are germinated artificially with the help of Richard King of King plants, a specialist laboratory that germinates orchid seeds.

King is offering his services almost free of charge.

When the seedlings are of sufficient size, they’re attached to lengths of vine bark (wingerdstokkies). These are then ready to take home and hang in a cool shady place, where they need to be sprayed with water daily and fertilised occasionally.

For more information on where to get the plants contact Masebenza 082 465 4687 or visit www.exoticplantcompany.co.za and follow the link to African orchids.

source : allafrica.com