The Biodiversity Showcase Garden at Cape Town's Green Point Urban Park was launched a couple of days ago and I went along to take a look at what has been taking shape beyond the fence. Calling it a garden is a bit of a misnomer as this doesn't quite convey the sense of what it is all about. This is not a space merely to observe pretty plants (you won't find any daffodils, hydrangeas or roses here!), rather in the botanical sense, it is a place to immerse yourself in our unique flora: you will leave here a changed person, inspired and ready to do your bit for furthering biodiversity.

This is a superbly landscaped biodiversity experience in the middle of an urban park. You are aware of being in the city: it is a fynbos-urban mashup with lots of interest to hold your attention. The setting is spectacular, being bounded by

join the solar water heating campaignThe sprouts want to go solar and we need your help. In fact we want to help you go solar too. What we really want is for you to help yourselves to go solar. Actually, we need your help to help the government to help us all to go solar!

Project 90x2030, Oxfam, 350.org, urban sprout and Activist! are calling on the government to spend R 60 billion wisely and commit this money to buying South Africa four million solar water heaters instead of spending it on more coal-fired power stations. Sign this online petition to urge the government to supply households with free solar water heating systems.

The country is already locked into the building of the Medupi power station at an estimated cost of R 125-billion and The Mail & Guardian reported in May the likely cost of the Kusile power plant will be R 175-billion.

This huge capital outlay is buying us a lot more coal pollution, increasing our

pic: mhnunsaThis was the slogan I spotted on a placard this morning while driving past Cavendish (of all places). The placard was held by a senior primary school girl, probably aged 11 or 12. And she was not alone - there must have been around seventy kids (perhaps more) and their teachers on an outing related to Arbour Week. It made me smile and gave me encouragement for our future. Way to go.

This was in contrast to the banter I heard on Heart fm this morning. Some hapless caller phoned in wanting advice on

pic:: greenpopWell today is more of a spring day than yesterday was. I was not feeling a spring vibe at all yesterday. More like the middle of winter, today however is a totally different story. It's feeling fresh out there, but not icy. It's sunshine rather than a blanket of black cloud.

So now that it's official what are your green plans for springtime? Spring is the beginning of a new growth cycle, a time for getting your fingers in the soil again...

For me this time of year is mainly about getting the veggie garden all fired up once more. Its been ticking over during winter as, with no frost, we can still grow a lot of the staples, albeit

treevolution a la greenpop.orgThe revolution has a name and it is Greenpop! Greenpop is a volunteer-powered tree planting project - a "creative greening campaign with a treemendous amount going on". Their first aim is to plant 1000 trees at various under-greened areas across Cape Town during spring 2010.

They seem to be up to really good things, including some reverse-grafitti street art and eco-educational upliftment. And thanks to involvement of Misha Teasdale, documentary filmmaker, there are some cool clips to check out on YouTube (be sure to watch them all).

This Sunday (29 Aug) the first trees will be heading groundwards at the Sosebenza Centre for Peace in Masiphumelele. And in conjunction with this, Urban Harvest will be planting a veggie garden too. They're keen to have as many volunteers join them as possible so check out their website for details.

Jeremy Hewitt and other accomplished musos

Grow to Live: By Pat FeatherstoneGrow to Live: A simple guide to growing your own good, clean food is a book that every South African food gardener, whether novice or not, needs to have on their bookshelf. I've become quite a collector of gardening books and there are some really informative books out there. Some were written in the 80's and 90's, or earlier, when it was fashionable to nuke your vegetables with every herbicide, pesticide, fungicide and other -icide known. You were advised to routinely spray with the likes of Malathion, Karbaspray, Metasystox and other chemical weapons of mass destruction. And you had to know all about applying the right proportion of NPK (Nitrogen, Phosphorus and Potassium) ala 2:3:2, 2:3:4, 3:2:1 or whatever. Well, following this advice would lead to a 5:4:3:2:1 explosion and the death of life in your garden.

So now you know what the book is not about, enter Grow to Live. This is a book that will make your heart soar as an organic gardener. The book distills the considerable knowledge

a greener athloneWe've seen some unexpected media releases in our time, but this one takes the cake. So here it is verbatim:

ATHLONE POWER STATION LOCATION TO BE CONVERTED TO WIND FARM

South Africa’s leading energy supplier has announced that, in conjunction with the City of Cape Town, it will be converting the old Athlone coal fired power station into a wind farm filled with eight new 1.5MW wind turbines.

It indicated that the implosion of the old power station is a symbol of its commitment to clean energy and plans to convert all existing coal fired powered stations into renewable energy sources by 2016.

We walked part of the fan walk on Saturday and were amazed at the masses of people, many of whom, like us didn't have tickets for the Argentina vs Germany game, but just went along with their kids to soak up some gees. More than 300 000 fans were in Cape Town over the weekend, 42 000 attended the Fan Fest and 153 000 supporters used the 2.5 km Fan Walk on Saturday. What a cool sight to see thousands of us mobilised to watch 22 men chase a ball around a little field of grass...

Join 1 Goal
About 70 million children world-wide will the opportunity of education through the FIFA 1Goal campaign, said ambassador Anthony Baffoe of Ghana on Saturday.

One of these children was Ghanaian Stephen Odai, who was given an opportunity to watch Ghana play against Uruguay on Friday.

"My policy has always been combining football with education, 1Goal helps these kids to start their life," said Baffoe, who was at a media briefing at Soccer City in Nasrec.

He said that 18-year-old Odai was the classical example of how education can open doors for young people...

Second Edition Cape Town Green MapWe've been working on a project with the City of Cape Town's Environmental Resource Management Dept and A & C Maps for the last eighteen months and today we're launching the second print edition of the Cape Town Green Map, ahead of World Environment Day tomorrow. The online map was launched a year ago, and Open Green Map, the global green map system we are affiliated with, is also turning one tomorrow.

Last night I attended the public sector equivalent of the Oscars - the Impumelelo Social Innovation Awards, dubbed Impumelelo's 2010 Sustainability Awards. I didn't know what to expect, not having gone before, and I'm not sure how the awards stacked up to previous ones, but last night I was blown away. There was glitz, glamour, fantastic entertainment, plenty of laughs and wonderful recognition for the most important work being done in South Africa at the moment. The Oscars actually paled in comparison.

The awards ran on for an hour longer than the program predicted, finishing at 10pm last night. So it was a four hour event, longer than any ceremony, movie or theatrical performance I'd attended before. With Mark Lottering as MC it was more than theatre - it was entertainment of note!

Not that I was not expecting to be entertained; the purpose