I was reading in a book this week how CDM had 4000 tree's planted around the town circa 1957...
Well we were out for a Saturday afternoon walk, noticed the Snooker and Darts was pumping....
Past a whole herd of Gemsboks lounging around the circle on 5th.... passed within 6 m of them, they did'nt even batter an eyelid..... some plonkers still think 5th Ave is an extension of Kyalami racing track and speed down there even though there are 16 gemsboks scattered across the road...
Anyhow.... check out the girth of this old tree on 5th avenue, must have been one of those that were planted back in 1957......
For what it';s worth, the grass along 5th looks terrible, with dry patches and even sandy spots....
we were blessed with those trees growing up with us ....
Around 1960 , the company got a lot of Christmas trees from Cape Town - all about 1 meter tall ,sold at subsidised prices to the public . After Christmas everybody was encouraged to plant these pines. And they can still be seen in Oranjemund today . Just take a look at Micheal magnificant pictures of the town , and one can still see them today !
Pleanty of those Christmas tree's around the town these days, I always thought that they had been planted in lines across the avenues. You could walk along the alley from 1st to 10th and it would appear that there was an XMAS tree in every 2nd garden on the left hand side...
I forgot to mention , the pine trees were Northfolk pines , and is commonly known as "Chrismas trees "
I add a pic of a wind blown one. Those days there were about 260 houses in Oranjemund .
It was common practice if you wanted the garden club to germinate seeds for you , they will do it in exchange for half of the seedlings to donate to parks and gardens . Who then planted these flowers or schrubs around company buildings .