The City’s Recreation and Parks Department hosted a rose care open day at the Durbanville Rose Garden on Saturday, 16 July 2022, where staff shared their expertise with all interested community members.

Caption 1: Attendees at the Rose care open day at the Durbanville Rose Garden

Caption 2: From L-R: Caroline Beyile (Team Leader), Cllr Ronel Viljoen (Chairperson of the Portfolio Committee for Community Services and Health) and Michelle Prins (DRG Senior Worker). Caroline Beyile has been working at the garden since August 2021. Earlier in her career, she learned how to grow vegetables from Elsenburg Agricultural College, then moved into a leadership role as a mowing supervisor in 2016. She is hands-on at DRG, spending hours tilling the soil which she loves. She’s also grateful to be able to work with experienced colleagues from whom she can learn a lot. Senior workers Michele Prins and Thembisile Mzileni (not pictured) support Caroline daily. Michelle has been with the City for 28 years and first worked at the City Nursery in Hoheizen before moving to DRG in 2010.

Caption 3: Henry Valentine from Ravensmead gets some guidance as he learns to prune rose bushes from Senior Worker Thembisile Mzileni. Pruning is important to complete in July, when the roses are dormant. It’s the secret to stimulating new buds to grow and shaping bushes. Thembisile was a volunteer at DRG for two years until January 2021 when he became a permanent employee. He says he knows everything there is to know about the famous roses, from weeding to pruning, planting and the historical significance of the garden.

Caption 4: Bulelwa Ngavu lives in Kuils River and couldn’t wait to start practicing her skills with a little help from senior worker and experienced City gardener, Michelle Prins.

Source: City Of Cape Town