Wonderful in winter!

With this trio of trusty old-timers growing in your winter garden, you will have no shortage of colour or visits from sunbirds.

Metarungia longistrobus

The sunbird bush with a wide distribution in Limpopo and Mpumalanga, is surprisingly adaptable to colder provinces as it is fairly cold- and frost-hardy if planted in the protection of trees. From this you can deduct that it loves semi-shade where some sun can reach it. It will also grow in full sun and is equally at home in the garden or in pots.

It is an evergreen and neat shrub (1-2m x 1-2m) with glossy, grey-green young leaves deepening to dark green when mature. From April to July, conical spikes of peachy orange to orange-brown blooms appear which attract nectar-feeding birds and butterflies. The flowers are soon followed by large seed capsules that explode when ripe in late winter, dropping the seed under the mother plant where they will readily germinate. The free seedlings can be successfully transplanted into other areas when big enough.