A heart-shaped pond

Reviving seasonal ponds at Princess VLei
By Emma Oliver

The new seasonal pond at Princess Vlei has filled up with the winter rain

 If you had looked at Princess Vlei from Elfindale or Windsor Park eighty years ago, you would have looked across a field of spring flowers to a myriad seasonal ponds where locals gathered waterblommetjies and pelicans and flamingos gathered in large numbers.
     Human impacts have radically transformed the landscape since then. The Vlei was dredged to absorb the seasonal flood waters, creating a single deep vlei rather than a community of flowing seasonal ponds. The bulrush typha capensis grows thick around the shoreline, barring direct access and view of the shoreline. Buffalo and kikuyu grasses have taken over - in the past, hippos, eland and later buck would have kept the grass down. 
      Reviving seasonal ponds, which fill with the winter rains and dry out in summer,  is a critical part of our work in reviving vibrant ecosystems in Princess Vlei, to help us bring back the waterblommetjies, micro frogs and a host of other fauna and flora. We created the first seasonal pond In 2019 on the northern shore line. This year we have expanded our restoration work on this side of the vlei (set back by a City Mowing contractor destroying our plants) and have created a second seasonal pond. The area around this has been the focus of our planting efforts with school learners, tertiary students and community members. 

The Cape Micro frog (Microbatrochella capensis)

The heavy lifting was done in April and early May by our restoration team supervised by Neil Petersen, who cut and uprooted out the long thick grass, ensuring no shoots remained to over run the area again. Several sturdy Brazilian pepper trees were cut down, and their deep roots dug out and removed. Other invasives  such as erigeron and the typha capensis were removed. The team also unearthed years of accumulated rubbish - shoes, clothes, plastics, concrete, builders waste, all the usual suspects. 
The soil we unearthed was rich and black, full of worms, humus and healthy biting mole crickets. The pond, by now a heart shaped muddy piece of ground, was planted out with isolepsis grass, to attract micro frogs (Microbatrochella capensis). These tiny frogs, once flourishing at Princesss Vlei, have become critically endangered and are only known to be at the  Kenilworth Racecourse.

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And at least two families of cape dwarf chameleons are permanent residents in the ficinia nodosa.

The ponds have been filled with the winter rains, and now the planting work is accompanied by the calls of the clicking stream frogs from the nearby reeds (a good sign of a healthy wetland), and a pair of yellow billed ducks have moved in. A number of community and school groups and student volunteers have helped to develop this ecosystem. 
This pond is a collective effort, with many hands making it possible (see Planting the pond). We hope that you will join us in celebrating this beautiful piece of restored life. 

• This exciting restoration project has been made possible with funding from the National Lotteries Commission, as well as the Hans Hoheisen Charitable Trust managed by Nedbank Private wealth, the Kirstenbosch Branch of the South African Botanical Society, and the Rowland and Leta Hill Trust.

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