Planting Together, In Celebration Of Mother Earth Day

This week’s Success Story comes from our tree-planting friend in Jeffrey’s Bay, South Africa.

By now, our global community is already familiar with Francois Fick, who has planted and dedicated many trees with the Global Tree Initiative. In case you forgot, you can read the story of how Francois and his son, Robbie, planted a tree together. You can read about the fruit trees that Francois plants for his community, or check out this story where Francois’ two sons and his father-in-law enjoyed planting ‘Oupa David’s nursery’ together.

Francois heard that Mother Earth Day will be celebrated on the 22nd of April. In celebration of this day, he decided to plant with his family.

Together with his wife Mariette, and their two boys, Robbie and David, they planted this beautiful Bougainvillea.

Francois, Robbie, and David

The Bougainvillea is a genus of thorny ornamental vines, bushes, and trees, belonging to the family Nyctaginaceae. They are popular, vibrant, drought-tolerant, and fast-growing bushes / trees in South Africa, thriving in warm, sunny climates.

For Francois and Mariette, it is important that their children develop and maintain an ongoing relationship with Mother Nature. Mother Nature is a great teacher. She teaches them about interconnectedness, generosity, beauty, and care – to name a few.

It was challenging to get small David to focus on the planting. He was more attracted to running around in the garden (while playfully being chased by his mom, Mariette). However, as seen in the clip below, little David managed to get his small hands dirty and do his share of the planting.

Thank you, Francois and Mariette, for planting together in honor of Mother Nature, and thank you for teaching our future generations how to care for Mother Nature. We really appreciate your contribution to our global community, and we look forward to seeing many more plantings of David and Robbie!

If anyone is in the Jeffrey’s Bay area and wants to plant some trees, please send Francois an email: francois@surfside.co.za

He has some saplings ready to share with you, and he would love to expand his tree-planting community!